What Was Lost
by ShadedJade
Summary: When the newly regenerated 11th Doctor crashes the TARDIS in Victorian London, he is presented with quite a mystery in the form of a young girl. A child companion brings about a different sort of adventure for the lonely Time Lord, but it's only the beginning of the lost being found. Very AU. 11/Rose. Includes Donna, and occasionally the Paternoster Gang. No Ponds. No Clara.
1. A Blue Snowflake

_This idea just hit me while listening to Alex Kingston talk about children on the TARDIS during Whoniverse last weekend. So when I finally got home from that I came up with this story and it just blossomed! I love the Ponds, Clara, and Tentoo - but this story called for alterations that will make sense later on. Although it gives the impression, the story is not entirely in Chloe's POV but at least some portion of every chapter will be. This story has about 30 chapters, but anything more (like a sequel) will be up to my readers to let me know if that's wanted. Although it has Rose/11 pairing listed, technically it's Rose/Doctor as both 9 and 10 are referenced. As always, any and all feedback is appreciated and helpful. I really hope you enjoy this story as I am absolutely in love with writing it._

* * *

 **~ A Blue Snowflake ~**

The world was being washed black and white, with the night sky darkening overhead and the street lamps glowing upon snow-sprinkled ground. It was getting colder now, and she would need new gloves soon.

Plucking a stray strand of wool from her well-worn fingerless gloves, Chloe turned her hands over to have a closer look at the countless patches of faded restitched colour. She could pretend it was only early in the afternoon, if she stood under the beaming street lamp long enough, but the new chill in the air brought on by the tiny spots of snow could not be ignored. Not while she wore a polka-dotted brown dress that was quite useless for warmth against the non-negotiable approach of wintry weather.

Chloe tilted her head back, sweeping fire-coloured strands hair from her spotty face, and stepped to the side to avoid being blinded by the street lamp overhead. She couldn't quite count the stars tonight, but she was sure they were still there. Wriggling her bare fingers against the night air, she decided to keep going. Chloe was almost home, if the tiny little house could possibly be called that.

She'd only been in Victorian London for four years, though to her four years was a very long time. Sometimes, when she said that, the grown-ups would ask her where she lived before. When Chloe didn't have an answer, they'd say she sounded Irish and must be from there. She didn't know what that meant, but the grown-ups stopped asking. They often did that – if she didn't give them an answer, they'd make one up for her. Like when she questioned her aunt or uncle where her mum and dad were. They always asked her what she thought, but Chloe only shrugged her shoulders and waited. Her uncle would tell her a story about two people who weren't very good at finding their way back home, and her aunt would say sometimes it's better not to know what happens to someone after they're gone.

She could see the battered wooden fence from across the street, but had to wait for a horse-drawn carriage to pass by.

Hurrying against the colder night, Chloe hugged her arms around herself in hope to contain the warmth against her chest. It was when she'd lifted the loose plank of chipping wood that she heard it for the first time. A strange sound – a noise unlike anything she'd ever heard before, and Chloe made an effort to hear everything she could. She liked to see everything too, and even tried to look closer at the snow last winter - after her grandfather said not a single snowflake was ever the same.

Chloe ducked under the planks, and slipped into the backyard. That's what her uncle said it was called, but all the flowers had long since wilted and the grass didn't grow anymore. It was just a square of dirt and rusting machinery. Chloe didn't like using the front door of the house, and had befriended the lonely tree hunched in the corner of the yard. She checked her dress hadn't gotten caught on a stray nail – her aunt was rather furious about that last time, though Chloe didn't understand why it was important. The dress was brown, and she didn't think such an ugly colour was worth caring for.

Grabbing a hold of the lowest branch of the tree, Chloe climbed her familiar ascent to see over the backyard fence. The sound was louder now - that strange noise she'd never heard before tonight. It came from the sky, and Chloe wondered if maybe it was a big snowflake. Sometimes a tree with small leaves would drop one much bigger than all the others, during the time when flowers grew and people sang.

Sitting on the sturdiest branch, Chloe let go and curled her fingers around her eyes to make binoculars. She saw a little blue glow in the sky, and swayed lightly on the branch in eagerness to watch its path towards the ground. It had to be a snowflake, Chloe decided, as nothing else fell from the sky during the cold nights other than snow and rain. Though she was hit with an umbrella once, from old lady Madison who lived in the room with the balcony above the main street.

The blue snowflake got bigger and louder – it shot down much faster than Chloe could count to ten. She always got stuck on eight, as if something else was meant to happen before nine.

She slid down from the branch, bracing herself for the rough landing on the damp dirt of the unpleasant backyard, and kept a watch on the thing in the sky. It was heading her way, but at an angle. Chloe knew it would land in the field on the other side of the fence. She couldn't let the blue snowflake get away – Chloe kicked at the planks of the fence near the tree until one came loose. She was glad her grandfather had bought her buckled boots last year, rather than the pretty shoes her aunt loved to squish her feet into. The empty space created by kicking the plank was small, but she didn't have time to make it bigger. Chloe was by no means starved, but food was sparse in her neighbourhood and she'd always been thinner than the other children. She slipped through the gap, with a bit of struggle that nearly tore her ugly brown dress, and hurried forward.

By the time she'd made it five paces into the dark field, the blue snowflake had crash-landed with a trembling sound. All the other snowflakes she'd tried to see were very tiny – much too small to notice their real shape. Chloe wondered if they all looked like a blue box, or if this one was special for more reasons than just being the biggest.

Night had properly fallen now, and there were no street lamps in the field, but the moonlight overhead was free from clouds so Chloe could see enough not to be too afraid. The glow of the golden words at the top of the box made it easier to forget about monsters in the dark or getting lost in the cold. Hugging her arms around herself again, she walked closer and waited a safe distance from the doors. Nothing happened, and Chloe remembered her aunt's warning about what happened to children who were too curious about things they didn't understand.

Chloe didn't care – her aunt said a lot of wrong things all the time.

Approaching the tall box, Chloe glanced to the sign on her left. Push to Open. Raising both hands to the surprisingly warm wood, she gasped as a sound was heard within. Without pausing to think, Chloe jumped back and ran around the side of the box. She dropped to the ground, and hid behind the box in hope the dim light would conceal her as easily as it did the monsters big boy Billy always told her about. She'd never seen one, but Billy drew pictures and it looked rather frightening with all those teeth.

Chloe crouched as silently as possible in the cold, listening as someone left the box and shut the door. Her grandfather always said to count to five before doing something risky, so Chloe whispered the numbers slowly before peering her head around the wooden corner. She saw the figure of a man wandering off the field and into the light of the street lamps.

Another count to five, and he was gone.

Standing carefully, Chloe walked round to the front of the box again and resumed raising her palms to press against the door. She expected it to swing open, but it didn't budge even a tiny bit. She looked for planks to kick, as it was made of wood as surely as the fence, but decided that wouldn't work on an actual door. Reaching up on her toes, Chloe saw a little keyhole near the handle. A key; that's what she needed! If this wasn't a snowflake (they don't have doors or signs), then Chloe really wanted to know what it was and how it fell from the sky.

Her grandfather had lots of keys, so one of them must fit!

Chloe hurried back to the fence, once again thankful for the tree she'd befriended – the taller branches glowed dimly under the moon and the little light on the box, which turned on when Chloe had come out of her hiding spot. She squeezed through the tiny one-plank gap and this time heard the unmistakeable sound of a rip. Checking her dress, she saw a corner had torn but everything else was fine. It was brown, so she didn't give it any further notice.

Reaching the back door, Chloe pushed it open and looked around the dark house lit only by a few sources of light. In the kitchen was a drawer that never quite opened on first try. It jammed a lot, and her uncle stopped using it as he preferred things to be quick or easy. Chloe liked a challenge, but tonight she just wanted to find her grandfather's keys. There had to be at least fifteen of them in the drawer, though possibly more if Chloe was that good at counting. She only knew up to twenty-seven before she had to stop to think that came next.

Chloe hugged one of her hats, loaded with the keys, while she ran back outside - and froze by the gap in the fence when the back door shut on its own. She gasped, and stared at it, but didn't have time to wonder if a monster was hiding in the house while her uncle was away. She made sure not to drop or lose any of the keys on the way back to the blue box. She put the hat on the ground, and started with a big rusting key on a silver chain. Chloe tried as many keys as she could, careful not to get the tried ones mixed up with the other ones by putting them on the ground next to the hat.

She looked at the sign again, hoping for a clue, and realised she'd misread it earlier. With the light on the top of the box now on, Chloe was able to see it actually said she had to pull to open, not push. She gave it a try, but still it didn't budge. Resuming her attempts of poking the lock with her grandfather's keys, she began to wonder what sort of man owned the box. He must own it, if the doors opened for him but not for her. It was small for people, and Chloe had no idea what could possibly be inside.

Holding the most boring of the keys, and almost the last one she'd found in the drawer, Chloe looked over her shoulder to check the man wasn't coming back yet. The night was getting much colder, and everything looked darker than before. She was scared of the monsters, and didn't know if the man would be mad at her for taking a look inside his sky box. Shivering, Chloe inserted the key the best she could, and was relieved when it went in all the way. With a tough turn, the key moved and Chloe listened for the click of the lock. Not hearing anything, she grabbed the handle and gave it a pull – the door opened!

Chloe quickly gathered all the other keys back into the hat, keeping a tight hold on the right one, and pulled the door all the way open. Her blue eyes widened at the sight within. Of all the impossible things, Chloe first thought of how much warmer it was. The snow had started to fall behind her in a way she could notice, and the wind began to howl against the outer sides of the box.

Stepping inside, clutching to her hat of keys, Chloe tried to work out what to stare at first. Not wanting to let the cold in, she closed the door and put her hat on the floor beside the hat-rack. There were holes and round things everywhere, then some steps, and some sort of railed area. Chloe didn't know what any of it was supposed to be, but it was warm and pretty so she liked it very much.

Stepping up onto the see-through floor, Chloe looked as far down as she could - then all the way up. Spotting a seat nearby, she walked over and sat down. Her feet dangled off the ground as she swung them back and forth, trying to look at every little thing she could. It was so warm, unlike anything she'd known. The strange hum coming from the thing in the middle with all the buttons was soothing, and Chloe almost wished she could just sleep there tonight instead of under her rickety uncomfortable bed.

'Oi!'

A man's voice startled her so much Chloe had to grab hold of the seat not fall off it. She jumped down, and turned to stare at the person standing in the doorway. He looked like the one she's seen come from the box earlier, and somehow she'd missed the sound of his return.

'Who are you, and how did you get inside my TARDIS?'

Chloe's eyes were wide, and her breath quickened, but she couldn't talk. Words were always troubling for her to speak when something unexpected happened, like when her grandfather woke one morning last year as happy as ever – then by lunch started crying and fell over in the living room. Her aunt said he'd died before they could send for help. Her uncle said it was always going to happen, but not that soon.

'What's your name?' The man came closer, and Chloe backed away. He didn't look mad, so she decided to try to talk properly. This once, she would to ignore her grandfather's rule about making sure to always lie if found somewhere you're not welcome.

'Chloe,' she managed to say, after the first attempt was nothing more than a breath of air.

'Okay, Chloe.' He nodded. 'How did you get in here? That- that doesn't just happen!'

She pointed to the hat-rack. The man followed her gaze and bent to pick up the hat, he shifted through the keys and remained quiet. Chloe wanted to make sure he didn't think she'd stolen them, as her aunt said it would be bad for strangers to think she was a thief like her mum and dad had been, but the words got stuck in her throat. She kept her hands tucked behind her back, and the man noticed as soon as he turned around.

Slowly, she held out the key that fitted the lock.

'Where did you get that?' The man asked, adjusting his red bow tie. 'Where did you get all these keys? Are you some sort of key collector?'

'My grandfather,' Chloe answered.

'And where is he?'

She lowered her arms to her sides, and looked down through the floor at her feet. Dead – that's the word she needed to use. That means his heart had stopped, his brain can't think, and his body won't move. It was the word grown-ups used to say a person was gone forever but left their body behind to turn into bones.

'Who was he?'

Chloe looked up at the man, who had moved closer when she hadn't paid enough attention. His face was sad, and voice much quieter - for a moment she thought he might understand. Then she remembered no grown-up ever understood, even the ones who actually bothered to try. She simply shrugged, and waited for the man to make up an answer for her like they all did.

'Why did you come here?' He asked another question instead. 'I wasn't out long. I went to visit some friends, but they weren't home. I would have waited, except it's very cold tonight. Unnaturally so. Aren't you cold?'

Chloe looked down at her brown polka-dotted dress and nodded. The tear on the corner had gotten bigger – her aunt won't like that. She looked back up at the man and decided he was interesting. Not as much as his box, but enough that Chloe decided to stay a little while longer if she could.

It was so warm in the box and she never wanted to leave it.

'I thought it was a snowflake,' Chloe said. 'I've never seen one up close. It's not, is it?'

'No, this is my TARDIS.' The man smiled, excited by his own box. 'What do you think?'

'It's warm and pretty,' she said, looking around again - he seemed to encourage it by waving his hands everywhere. 'It's smaller outside. Is that so it can land anywhere? It wouldn't be nice to squish my tree.'

The man's smile only got wider.

Chloe shifted uncomfortably, not sure what to do. Now she'd started talking, and assumed she's not in trouble for being where she wasn't welcome, Chloe found it hard to ignore her curiosity.

'Is that your TV?' Chloe pointed to a box with a screen hanging over all the buttons and stuff.

'And how do you know what a TV is?' The man came up the steps towards her, to which Chloe backed to the seat and sat down.

He stared at her carefully for a long moment, and she fought the urge to tell him that he knew what a TV was too.

'When were you born?' He asked. 'What age are you?'

Chloe shrugged, ducking her head.

'You don't know?'

She shook her head. No one had ever told her, and she didn't have Birthdays like the other kids did. She often wondered what they did on their Birthdays, but was never invited to find out.

'I just know I've been in Victorian London for four years.' Chloe met his green eyes. Her grandfather had green eyes too, but was harder to see with all the wrinkles and frowns.

'Victorian London,' the man repeated, leaning even closer. 'And when were you before that?'

When.

Chloe smiled widely at the stranger with a bow tie and unusual box. Finally, a grown-up who knew how to ask the right questions.

'I don't remember,' she said. 'But I miss the TV and the big jumpers. I told my grandfather I don't like it here and he said we can't go back.'

'Where are your mum and dad?' he asked. 'Oh, I'm the Doctor, by the way!'

He winced suddenly, and breathed out some sort of golden smoke or dust from his mouth.

'Is that nana-gees?' Chloe asked. They looked like something her grandfather had used a long time ago, to heal her knees when she'd fallen from her bike. He used to talk about them all the time, but she hadn't seen any since coming to Victorian London.

'Nanogenes?' the Doctor was staring at her again. 'Chloe, was it? It is all very timey-wimey - but this should be impossible! Well, almost impossible. Very unlikely at best. Do you remember anything about how you got to Victorian London?'

Chloe shrugged. She didn't like to think about it – whatever it was had made her grandfather sick until he became dead. She didn't want to answer questions or be stared at either, Chloe just liked being warm inside the bigger than the outside room. She withdrew her feet onto the chair so she could hug her arms fully around herself.

'Can I stay?' she looked at the Doctor. 'It's really nice in here. Please?'

'Won't your mum and dad miss you?'

'Don't have a mum and dad,' Chloe sniffed. 'Got an aunt and uncle, but they live in different houses and forget me all the time. They never miss me.'

'You can stay for tonight,' the Doctor said, and pushed some buttons on the control thing. Chloe watched him until her eyes got heavy.

The warmth of the room felt to increase, as the hum in her ears had the tone of a lullaby. She slid onto her side, and bent her knees to fit on the seat comfortably enough without falling off. Eyes closed, and feeling sleepy, Chloe was barely aware of the Doctor's shadow moving over her. He whispered the last words she heard before sleep overcame her.

'Oh, Chloe,' he said. 'Why can't I see your timeline? Where did you come from? All of time and space, and you're something _completely_ new.'

* * *

 _Just a note to say the Paternoster Gang are in the next chapter, and it won't be long until Donna. Rose is a little later on because..._ Spoilers! _This story contains a lot of original content in terms of plot and planets, and I would very much love to hear your opinions on everything so far. Regardless, thanks for reading and I hope you'll stick around for more!_


	2. The Lizard Woman

_Don't ask me why this chapter is so long - it just sort of happened. I'm so excited for this story that I decided to just upload this chapter right away after finishing it because people seem to be enjoying it so far! Also a shout-out to my friend Sophie, who loves the Paternoster Gang so much I decided to include them in more than just this chapter of the story._

* * *

 **~ The Lizard Woman ~**

The Doctor was baffled by the young company asleep on his chair in the console room.

The first fifteen hours of his new regeneration were almost over, and he'd thought for once it could have gone by rather uneventfully. He'd crashed a few times; ended up in Rome, twice - both a couple hundred years apart, then interrupted young Leonardo Da Vinci in 1473 by nearly setting fire to his workshop, and finally arrived in Victorian London without too much of a display. He'd hoped to check in on Madam Vastra and Strax, as he hadn't seen them in quite a while, and tracked them to this time period.

He'd aimed for earlier, but the TARDIS insisted otherwise.

Instead of the quick visit he'd planned, the Doctor found they weren't home and it was snowing a whole two months earlier than the season called for. He went back to his warm TARDIS with the intent to make a timey-wimey detector, only to find a little ginger girl had somehow, quite impossibly so, gained access to his newly decorated TARDIS. And with a key he didn't remember giving away. It was a very specific key too, which Chloe had dropped when she'd fallen asleep curled up on his chair. He peered at it carefully, noticing "NESS" was engraved along the rim in tiny letters.

It was a mystery in itself, though he was further intrigued by the complete and utter lack of a timeline around the girl. At first the Doctor thought it was simply too jumbled to make sense of, further believed when he discovered she wasn't born in the time she lived in, but really there was nothing. Any traces of time on or around her were from others - people she'd made frequent contact with, but none specifically Chloe's. The girl existed outside the stream of time, and the Doctor had no idea what to make of that.

There were myths, back on Gallifrey, but he couldn't remember the details.

The TARDIS, however, seemed to like the girl quite a lot. The ship did have a soft spot for children, just like the Doctor, yet Chloe received special treatment. The air was warmer around the child's small form, and the hum in his ears soothing - was his ship singing to her? Why was this one little girl so important and impossible?

Tucking the key into a pocket of his tweed jacket, the Doctor carefully bent to scoop the girl into his arms with care. Her head slumped against him, and the Doctor felt the bite of an old memory. He walked up the stairs, far opposite the entrance, to find her a room - a bed would surely be more comfortable than the minimally-providing chair she'd curled up on.

A room appeared to his right the moment he entered the first corridor, accompanied by the encouraging hum of the ship. The door was painted a rather familiar shade of blue, though not the one of his TARDIS. Careful not to drop or wake the child, the Doctor nudged the door open with his foot, and lowered Chloe onto the large bed. He tucked the violet duvet around her, and brushed a hand over her head. He lingered a moment longer, noticing a golden braid of hair had traces of time woven through it. He doubted she even realised – no, only a Time Lord/Lady could have.

The Doctor did a quick scan of his sonic screwdriver, just to be sure.

Completely human – one hundred per cent human with no traces of anything alien or otherwise. She was an ordinary human girl, recently eight years old, and nothing like anything he'd ever encountered before. It didn't make any sense, but his curiosity wasn't allowed. Chloe could not stay, no matter how mysterious and new she was.

Walking back to the console room, with his plans to investigate the early wintry weather or track down his friends no longer an option, the Doctor tried to shake the mystery of young Chloe. It was very, very tempting but he couldn't risk it. He leaned back against the console, away from any buttons or levers that should never ever be accidentally bumped, and turned the key over in his hand again. The lettering was stranger than the fact the girl had the key, as he'd never engraved any of his spare TARDIS keys before. "NESS" made no sense to the Doctor at all, prompting him to wonder if maybe he was simply a bit behind – perhaps the origins of the key were still to come in his future?

His intriguing little mystery aside, the Doctor had to work out how to spend the night. He didn't want to leave with a child on board, even if she was sleeping and would likely remain that way until morning. New companions alone on the TARDIS was something in itself, but a child? Except he couldn't have child companions – and for very good, very complicated, reasons. He was sure he had a list somewhere with those reasons, though he couldn't shake the look in Chloe's eyes when she'd said her own aunt and uncle forget her all the time. There was a deep sadness about the girl, melded with curiosity and something so unique the Doctor could never put a name to it – yet that special something was what all his companions had.

He never knew why, only who.

'No, no!' the Doctor scolded himself. 'No child companions. That's the rules!'

He ignored the sharp hum the TARDIS responded with, and set about doing some repairs in effort to pass the time. He might even get around to a timey-wimey detector as well – it was still very cold outside far too soon. Yes, those were the things he would let his mind wander with – anything other than the small child sleeping somewhere in the TARDIS as if it was the most natural thing for her to do.

* * *

When Chloe opened her eyes, the field of flowers in her dream vanished to replace the view of an unfamiliar room.

Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, she sat up and kicked off the super-comfy blankets. The bed was huge and certainly not hers. Chloe crawled to the end of the bed and sat there, looking around at the round shapes on the walls lit in purple tones. There wasn't much in the room, just a sofa and something with drawers. She slid down and shivered as her toes touched the cold floor, proving her boots had disappeared while she was sleeping.

That was nothing new – she was always losing things when her eyes were closed.

'Hello?' Chloe checked she was alone. She heard a hum that she already thought of as the sound of the box.

She was certainly still in the box, then.

Walking to a nearby door, Chloe pulled it open and saw a sort-of small bathroom inside. It even had a wooden step-stool for her to reach the round sink, where a brand new blue toothbrush waited for her to use. She had lots of things sitting there on the shelf next to the sink: that toothbrush still in its silvery wrapper, a rainbow-coloured tube of toothpaste, red hairbrush, butterfly hair-clips, a blue facecloth, and for some odd reason – a banana.

After using the bathroom, and being content her teeth were brighter than ever, Chloe returned to the bed to toss the fruit peel into a small bin next to it, and saw folded clothes waiting for her at the end of the bed. With a wide smile, she ran over to grab the multi-coloured wool jumper and hugged it to her chest. She swirled around, marvelling in its softness, and didn't even care where it came from. She changed into the pink shirt and blue jeans as quickly as possible, just so she could pull the sweater over her head. It was so comfortable, and Chloe loved wriggling the tips of her fingers that poked out the end of her sleeves.

Blue fingerless gloves, rainbow socks, and her now-polished boots were also there for her to wear.

Chloe wondered if the Doctor had put them there, and if maybe he wanted her to stay too? Feeling happy and well-rested, Chloe headed for her blue door and pushed it open just enough to peer outside the bedroom. She saw a long corridor, and already felt terribly lost.

'Doctor?' Chloe uttered quietly, and slipped from the room.

She stood warily with her arms hugged around herself, and darted her gaze in search of a clue where to go. Not wanting to be stuck in the corridor where she'd surely be forgotten, Chloe took a deep breath and counted to five.

She turned left, and followed the sound of the humming – it got louder the further along she went, until she came to some stairs. The pretty room she was in last night looked much bigger from her higher angle, and she was relieved to see the Doctor at the middle bit with the controls and lights.

'Ah, hello!' He smiled widely at her, as Chloe made her way down the steps to join him. 'Sleep well? Ooh, I see the TARDIS gave you new clothes.' He looked upwards at the long thing in the middle.

'How can a box give me clothes?' Chloe asked, feeling shy again in memory that this wasn't her house and everything was still very weirdly new. She walked to the seat she remembered sitting on before, and sat with her legs drawn up to her chest as she watched the Doctor.

'She's alive, ' he said. 'And she might look like a box on the outside, but she's actually a spaceship. The best there is!'

Chloe's eyes widened and looked around with renewed interest. Her grandfather told her about spaceships all the time, but she'd never seen one before! And it was alive? She wasn't sure she believed it, but the Doctor would know more than her about that stuff since he actually has a spaceship.

'What are you doing?' Chloe looked at the buttons and levers closest to her. None of them made any sort of sense.

'Complicated stuff!' he answered, partially out of view behind the glowing thing in the middle. 'Tell me, yesterday – did it get cold all of the sudden or very slowly?'

Chloe shrugged. She saw his frown and knew that wasn't the answer he wanted. He didn't say anything else, just returned to his button-pressing.

Feeling she'd disappointed the mysterious man with the spaceship box, Chloe tried again.

'It was a bit cold, then it was a lot cold,' she said, and his head appeared in proper view to watch her. 'So? It happens when people stop singing and flowers don't grow anymore.'

'But there's still two months until winter.'

'Is there?' Chloe ducked her head, dropping her legs so her feet dangled over the see-through floor.

She hated it when people talked in time – no matter how hard she tried, it always left her confused. They said months, days, hours, years, seconds, and she didn't know which was which. When there was light in the sky, it was day – when it was gone, it was night and she needed to sleep. Even her grandfather had given up trying to make it clearer to her.

'Do you know what month it is?' The Doctor came closer – Chloe knew by the approach of footsteps and his shadow because didn't dare look up in shame of not knowing the right answer.

'What's a month?' she mumbled.

'Can you count to ten? Write your name? Read the words on the outside of this ship?' his voice sounded weird, but still she didn't look up.

'Yeah.' Chloe frowned. 'I'm not stupid.'

'Never thought you were, Chloe.' He crouched in front of her, and she couldn't avoid meeting his eyes this time.

She saw something in his eyes that made her believe him – and felt calmer with the way he didn't tower over her like the other grown-ups did. He opened his mouth to say something, and was interrupted by a knock at the main door.

'Ah, right on time!' The Doctor sprung up onto his feet so fast Chloe jumped back in fright.

He hurried down the steps to answer the door, with the same spring in his step her grandfather used to have when old lady Madison brought by freshly baked bread now and again. She turned around in the seat, leaning on her knees to push herself higher for a better view.

She could only make out the figure of a woman dressed in black.

'Madam Vastra!' the Doctor said cheerfully. 'Long time.'

'For you, I suppose,' she said, removing her veil. 'For me, however-'

'You're a monster!' Chloe pointed, staring at the green skin of the woman. She ducked down to hide herself behind the back of the seat, breathing fast and uncomfortably.

Big boy Billy was right - there are monsters!

'No, no – Chloe!' the Doctor appeared at her side. 'No monster. No monsters in here, just my friend. She's...' He waved aimlessly at the door. 'Just a bit different. She's a lizard. Specifically, a Silurian. That's a type of lizard, sort of.'

'Can a lizard be a monster?' She peered uncertainly at him through strands of her firey-red hair.

'I suppose so,' he frowned. 'But not this one. She's my friend, I promise. Her name is Madam Vastra.'

Chloe slowly rose her eyes over the back of the seat, watching the lizard woman carefully. She just looked back at Chloe, but didn't look mad at her – though it was hard for Chloe to know for sure, with her being a lizard person and all.

'Sorry.' She mumbled, keeping only her eyes and top of head in view, as her cheeks warmed with embarrassment.

'Your assistants keep getting younger,' Madam Vastra said to the Doctor when he rejoined her. 'And you're undertaking the company of children on the TARDIS now? Is that safe?'

'No, no she's just...It's a sleepover, yes! She came to stay for the night. Just the one night.'

Chloe sank back against the chair, facing the control bit, and looked down at the see-through floor.

The lizard woman and Doctor were talking, and she ignored them. She didn't care about the weird cold outside, not if she had to leave the warm spaceship box after only one night. It was the best sleep she could remember having, feeling so warm and safe without worrying about monsters or being alone. She didn't even have nightmares of waking to find everyone was gone, leaving her behind with only a tree for a friend.

Chloe heard the Doctor say her name, then his approach, but didn't move. She sat there, looking through the floor – which got harder to see with blurred vision. Feeling water on her face, she reached up to realise she was crying. Her special blue snowflake was really a spaceship box, so warm and pretty, but she wasn't allowed to stay. She had to go back to her grandfather's house with her uncle, or across town to her aunt's silly little house that always smelled of pears.

'Chloe?'

Her name sounded softer this time, as the Doctor once again crouched in front of her. He was always much less scary and grown-up when he did that. Still she couldn't look at him, scared he'd get angry at her for crying or wanting to stay. Her uncle always said crying was a baby thing to do, while her aunt complained about the distraction. Her grandfather once said that no one should ever cry about the things that don't matter, so crying was how she'd know something was important.

Chloe knew she wanted to stay in the box with the grown-up who asked the right questions, to see something new and pretty instead of being swallowed by a boring place with ugly colours.

'You want to stay.'

When the Doctor said those words, he sounded really tired and old - she didn't want to know why.

Chloe bobbed her head, making another tear spill down her spotty cheek. The Doctor sighed, and she couldn't tell if he was angry or impatient. Grown-ups always seemed to be one or the other. Sometimes both at the same time if she was very unlucky.

'Chloe, how would you like to go on an adventure today?' the Doctor was happy now, and it confused her a lot. Why couldn't grown-ups make sense for once?

She looked up, and blinked as he wiped a tear from her face with his thumb.

'What's an adventure?'

'It's when something new happens that can be exciting, scary, and interesting all at once!' he grinned, standing to hold his hand out to her. 'What do you say – sound like fun?'

Chloe smiled and grabbed his hand, letting him guide her down from the chair and to the door where the lizard woman was nowhere to be seen. Chloe used her spare hand to wipe the remainder of tears from her face, and winced against the sudden attack of cold outside the box. She looked around for the snow, hoping to spot a snowflake, but there was only roaring winds chilling through her lovely new clothes.

'This is not supposed to happen!' the Doctor shouted over the wind.

Chloe's teeth chattered. She felt the weight of something fall over her shoulders, and looked to see it was the Doctor's jacket. The sleeves were longer than her arms could possibly fill, and Chloe saw he wasn't wearing anything very warm. He seemed fine, so she clutched to the jacket with one hand while keeping a tight grip on his with the other.

She followed him back into the town, and spotted big boy Billy running down the street with two unfamiliar boys. They hurried inside old lady Madison's house, and Chloe almost wished she could join them. It was so cold!

'In here!' The Doctor released her hand.

She didn't have time to look, or try to grab his hand back, as she was lifted up from under her arms into something. Seeing the outside wall of a carriage pass by her, Chloe gasped in excitement - she'd never been inside one before! She sat comfortably on the seat, and watched the Doctor somehow fall in beside her.

He shut the door, and they both exhaled with relief for the shield against the wind.

'Where to, Sir?' came a voice ahead – the person who steered the carriage, Chloe assumed.

'Peddleton Manor!' the Doctor called back.

'What did you say, Sir? The enemy's air tactics are crippling to our strategy communications!'

'Peddleton Manor!'

'What was that? Shall I release the acid, Sir? It will obliterate the excessive levels of oxygen-'

'No - no acid!' the Doctor grumbled, throwing his hands around. 'Take us to Peddleton Manor!'

'Where?'

Chloe cupped her hands over her ears as the yelling continued, until the carriage finally gave a jerk and moved forward.

'Right.' the Doctor turned to her with a smile, rubbing his hands together. 'This cold snap is not meant to happen, not yet. Much too soon. So, what's causing it?'

'Is this part of the adventure?' she asked.

'Yes.'

'I've never been in a carriage before.' Chloe looked around – it was smaller than she'd pictured, and much bumpier.

'There's a first for everything,' he said, still watching her. He did that a lot, Chloe noticed, and wasn't sure she liked it. 'So, what do you think of it being cold too soon?'

Chloe shrugged again, and saw the strange frown he gave her when she didn't say the right thing. She bit her lip and thought about it, but she didn't know much about what made the wind angry and cold.

'Where's the snow?' Chloe wondered, taking a peek through the window at the town. It looked so different from the carriage. 'It started to snow, but now it's gone. How can it be cold without snow or rain?'

'Ah.' He nodded, pointing a finger in the air. 'Excellent question. It was snowing last night, and now not a single speck anywhere. So, how is it this cold? The terrible wind is just an after-disturbance of the atmospheric anomaly.'

Those were a lot of words Chloe didn't know. She was glad the carriage stopped so she didn't have to try to figure out what he'd said. They got up, and the Doctor lifted her from the doorway to the ground. He secured the jacket somehow, as it never fell off her shoulders despite her not wanting to slip her arms through the tunnelling sleeves.

They weren't alone. The lizard woman was there in different clothes and some sort of sword on her back. The not-a-lizard woman with her had one too, and seemed very interested in the Doctor.

'This is Jenny,' Madam Vastra said, gesturing to the not-a-lizard one. 'My wife.'

'Almost a month now.' Jenny replied with a smile, looking to the lizard woman then back at the Doctor.

Her accent was funny, so Chloe liked her – though the sword was a bit scary.

'Oh, lovely! Pleased to meet you, Jenny.' the Doctor grinned against the wind and cold. 'Did I miss the wedding?'

'No, you were there,' Madam Vastra nodded.

'Brilliant! I look forward to it.' He clapped his hands together.

'Sir, the air tactics are increasing in strength and irritation. I suggest a full-frontal attack with flesh-melting lasers, and grenades.'

Chloe ran around to the other side of the Doctor's legs when the talking brown thing walked down from the front of the carriage, and joined them. He complained about social interactions, and once again the Doctor wasn't bothered by what Chloe first thought had to be a monster.

'Strax.'

She looked up at the Doctor, whose hand had dropped onto her head. His palm felt impossibly warm against the chilling wind.

'Another friend.'

'Greetings, Boy,' Strax said to her.

'I'm not a boy!' Chloe frowned, finding her bravery to speak. Boys were gross and annoying! 'I'm a girl.'

'You'll have to excuse- ' the Doctor frowned at the wind. 'Excuse Strax. Two genders is a bit much for him to keep up with. Now, this is Peddleton Manor?' He turned to the women, talking too fast through the wind about grown-up stuff that didn't make sense.

Chloe looked back at Strax, and tilted her head. She walked around the Doctor, who removed his hand from her head, and approached the newest non-monster friend. Up closer, Strax wasn't that much taller than her, compared to all the other grown-ups, and she couldn't tell if he was actually grown up or not.

'Chloe.' the Doctor caught her attention again. 'I need to you wait here. There's Windspers inside and we have to go stop them.'

'What's a winsper?' She moved forward, not wanting to let him go and be left alone in the cold. They'll forget her and she'll be lost without a way to get back to grandfather's house.

'A Windsper is a wind whisper – sort of looks like a ghost, and sucks up all the snow or ice in the area. They absorb frozen liquids the same way humans do oxygen, and the cold is the carbon-dioxide, of sorts,' the Doctor explained. 'Jenny here, who is brilliant by the way, spotted it inside the Manor. Anything that touches it turns to...well, not to worry. Just wait here, and we'll be right back.'

'Everyone says that,' Chloe sniffed. 'They all forget about me.'

'I won't forget you,' he ruffled her hair, and got some sort of wand-thing out of an inside pocket of the jacket she still wore. 'Promise. Cross my hearts. Stay here.'

Chloe watched the two grown-ups, lizard woman, and brown Strax head through the open scary gates. They headed across a lawn, but beyond that it was hard to keep an eye on them through the howling wind. She hugged herself around the jacket, wishing she could carry some of the spaceship box's warmth with her.

Chloe shivered uncontrollably, and waited, but nothing happened.

She didn't know how long time was, and if it had been long enough that they'd forgotten about her already. The lizard and her wife had swords, and the brown Strax had what looked like a shooting thing, but what did the Doctor have?

Hearing a branch snap behind her, Chloe whirled around. The single road suddenly looked huge and empty – even the carriage towered over her, with the door rattling with the wind. The air itself sounded different, almost like an actual howl was mixed with it – she saw something gold, and didn't wait to find out what it was.

Running to the gates, which stretched on seemingly to the sky, Chloe clutched to the jacket and didn't stop moving until her feet nearly fell from under her. She reached the door, and was glad it was partially open. Pushing her way inside, the lack of wind roaring against her made everything a bit better already. The place was old and dusty, but Chloe didn't care where she was – she had to find the Doctor. He was the only thing she had now. He was warm, safe, and interesting. Chloe never had all three of those things at once, and never wanted to let go in case it was the only time she ever could.

Hearing a dripping sound in a nearby room, she ran to it and discovered an old kitchen. Hovering there, just off the puddled floor in a corner near some big pots, was what did look like a ghost made of snow and ice. Some parts were snowy, and other bits almost see-through. That had to be the winsper! Chloe didn't know what to do – it didn't turn to face her, so she tried to back slowly out of the room. She bumped into a low-hanging spoon - the clang it made against a nearby pot caught the thing's attention. It had no eyes, just empty blackness, but the mouth was wide like the drain in her bathtub when it sucked in all the water.

Chloe felt herself getting colder and colder, her teeth chattering and cheeks burning, as the monster came closer. It was right in front of her, and she couldn't move! Its long fingers reached towards her, inches from her face, when suddenly it recoiled so fast she stumbled backwards against the wall in shock.

Not caring why, Chloe turned and ran out the door.

She swallowed, and knew the next time that happened she would be able to scream. For now she just ran, heading through a big room with old furniture, and kept going until she found a bed to hide under. Crawling among the tickle of dust, she lay there on her stomach, gasping for breath. She anxiously waited to see if the winsper would follow her. It didn't look like the ones Billy talked about and drew pictures of, but it had to be a real monster.

The Doctor, lizard, wife, and Strax were somewhere in the house trying to stop the monsters. Is that what an adventure was supposed to be? She wasn't doing it very well then.

Chloe stayed there a bit longer, until her breathing became normal enough she could risk crawling out from under the bed while coughing at the dust. She was scared, though the Doctor's jacket almost felt the same as when he'd held her hand - not safe, but also not alone. If she stayed under the bed, what would happen if the monster found her or the Doctor couldn't? Hearing yelling from nearby, she just wanted to hide again. It was the lizard woman's voice, so Chloe peered around the door-frame to see what was going on. Madam Vastra and Jenny were battling two much bigger winspers, and Chloe couldn't tell who was winning.

Where was the Doctor?

'Die you frozen scum!' Strax shouted, bursting into view with some sort of light-shooting thing that looked dangerous yet didn't do much damage to the monsters. 'And surrender to the glory of the Sontaran Empire!'

'I can't get it open!'

The Doctor's voice came from where the kitchen was. Chloe kept close to the walls, and headed back to it – trying to stay away from the fighting and scarier winspers.

'Chloe!' the Doctor stared at her when she reached the kitchen doorway. The room was much messier than it was before, with overturned crates and broken pots. 'What are you doing here? Don't wander off, I say. Every time!'

'Can I help?' Chloe whimpered, looking over her shoulders at the fighting. Strax sounded excited, and the other two looked as if they did this all the time.

They must be used to having adventures.

'No, no – absolutely not!' he shook his head, waving a green-lit wand-thing at a wall. 'Wood! It's always wood!' the Doctor growled.

Chloe saw the wall had a square at the bottom, and wondered why he had to get into the wall. Did he need somewhere to hide?

'Doctor!' Madam Vastra yelled from behind them.

Everything was fast and loud. Chloe couldn't tell what was going on exactly - only that the winspers were attacking them, and the Doctor needed the wall for something.

She caught some words, and realised something was in the wall that gave a winsper power to make the big scary ones being fought in the other room. Chloe turned to see the one she'd faced before, hovering over a puddle, in a corner to watch the fight. It was all alone and sad; something she was familiar with.

Chloe looked at the wall and the panel, knowing the cold and monsters could be stopped if the power it needed was turned off – like the TV she used to watch back before she had to come to Victorian London.

'Chloe, no!' the Doctor tried to grab her, and got the jacket instead. She shed it, and kicked hard at the wall panel with her boot. 'No! You need to get out of here.'

He grabbed a hold of her, and she fought against him.

'I can fit!' She yelled at him, begging him to listen. 'I can fit!'

His arms released her. Chloe resumed kicking, but was nudged aside. She saw the Doctor use his bigger boot to kick the square wood inwards, then looked at her with a strange expression. She'd never seen a look like that aimed at her before. It was a mum or dad thing – when other kids got hurt or were upset, the mums and dads gave them that look.

Chloe stared back at him, waiting for his nod, then ran to duck through the hole. It was only just big enough for her, and very dusty inside. It was dark too, but the Doctor passed her his wand-thing and told her to hold the button down to make it work.

'It's my sonic screwdriver,' he said. 'Can you see?'

'Yes.' Chloe crouched uncomfortably, seeing she was in some sort of tunnel within the wall. The green light of the buzzing screwdriver reflected on a shiny rock. She hurried over the best she could in her cramped position, and snatched it with her free hand. The rock looked like a chunk of ice, but didn't feel cold at all. Her hand got hotter, so she quickly retreated before letting herself worry the wall would close in on her.

'Get me out!' She panicked, unable to see the hole clearly enough in the disturbed dust.

Hands reached for her; the Doctor helped her back into the kitchen. She gave him the screwdriver and rock, then tried to grab hold of something that kept her close to him. He was wearing his jacket again, so she clutched a handful of the back of it. He pointed the screwdriver at the rock and a bright light filled the room. It was so white she had to close her eyes when they hurt too much to see.

The fighting had stopped.

The others stood nearby, watching as the Doctor approached the one winsper left. Chloe heard enough to know it had made the bad winds, and everyone cold. It created more ice monsters but they couldn't stay so he had to make it colder to stop them from melting too. The Doctor was angry with him, and Chloe wasn't sure what was meant to happen next.

She'd never been on an adventure before.

The Doctor promised to take the winsper home, then turned and held onto Chloe's hand a bit tighter than he had before. He led her out of the Manor and back to the carriage. Strax climbed up at the front, and the Doctor lifted Chloe into the carriage.

He didn't join her.

'Take her back to the house,' he told Strax. 'We'll meet you there, just got to wrap things up here.'

'No!' Chloe hurried to leave, but the door shut and she fell to the floor from the jerk of the carriage moving.

Feeling a sob creep up her throat, she sat on the bumpy seat and stared out the window. She could see the buildings now the wind had stopped, and despite four years of living in the town – it all looked so far away. She pulled her feet up onto the seat, wrapping her arms around her legs, and buried her face to her knees.

'Boy!' Strax's voice reached her ears. The carriage door was open and he stood there just outside it. 'Vacate the carriage immediately or prepare to be obliterated! If you're still at risk of hypothermia, a herbal tea is recommended.'

Chloe ignored him - he was brown and not important.

She must have done something wrong on the adventure, for the Doctor to just make her leave like that. She didn't even know why she was so scared of being left behind by him – he was still a stranger to her, just one with a really pretty spaceship box. She felt like crying and never stopping, so the Doctor must be important. He'd asked the right questions, and let her help to stop the monsters, but still Chloe was the one sitting alone in the carriage.

And she stayed there. Strax demanded her to move, and she didn't. Her refusal somehow impressed him, as he let her be after a while and called her brave for disobeying the orders of a Sontaran warrior without showing fear. Chloe thought he must be very confused about more than just her being a girl if he couldn't see how scared she really was. Wonderful things didn't just happen to her, not until a blue box fell from the sky and she went on her first adventure.

And now all of it was probably gone, while she sat there forgotten.

'Chloe?'

'Doctor!' she gasped, eyes teary and disbelieving as he appeared at the doorway of the carriage. She jumped up from the seat, and ran to dive out of it into his arms. He caught her, and Chloe looped her arms around his neck. She pressed her face to his shoulder, and exhaled with relief. She had to hold on better this time, then maybe he won't disappear.

'Are you alright?' he asked in a funny voice, holding her firmly. 'Was Strax being mean?'

'I thought you left me! I thought you forgot about me.' Chloe sniffed, relieved that someone came back for her. He didn't just leave her alone, unsure where she was or how to get back to a house she knew.

The Doctor, however, was far less relieved.

A part of him, that selfish and cowardly part he tried to ignore, almost wished he had left her.

He wanted to forget the mysterious little girl. Chloe, who had all the spark of his companions without any of the maturity that meant she would be just safe enough to travel with him. She was too young, too impressionable, and much too tempting. The girl with no timeline, who had seemingly latched onto him just because he'd sent her carriage ahead to Madam Vastra's house to wait for him. The child who he should never ever have let stay the night in his TARDIS, and therefore make it all that much harder to say goodbye.

'Well, you're alright.' He tried to be cheerful, he really tried. The Doctor placed Chloe on the ground, and pat her head. She smiled up at him through her tears, so vulnerable and trusting.

It broke his hearts.

'Everything's fine now.' He tried again. 'The Windsper got a lift back to his family on Whorl – that's why he was so lonely, he missed them and thought he'd never see them again. He got so lonely he tried to make a new one...' the Doctor frowned at his own words, and turned quickly when Madam Vastra joined him with Jenny at her side.

'Doctor?'

He ignored the inquiring look Vastra gave him, and couldn't even make himself look Chloe in the eyes.

'Right.' He clapped his hands together. 'Job well done. I got what I came for, the Windspers are gone, and now I'll be off! Madam Vastra, always a pleasure. And Jenny, I look forward to seeing you again.' He kissed her hand, doing a little bow.

He was very pleased his Silurian friend had found love, even if it was in the form of a human she would surely outlive. Everything was biting at his memories today, and he felt further compelled to get away from this time and place as fast as he could run.

He had a lot of practise.

'Madam Vastra, drop Chloe off at her grandfather's house – it's just round the corner or two. There's a big semi-telepathic oak tree in the back yard, can't miss it. Make sure she's safe.' He said quickly, and turned away. 'Until next time, Mates!'

He turned and walked away, hurrying quickly before anyone could protest.

'Just go, and don't look back,' he told himself, fighting with every fibre of his existence not to let Chloe's mystery or sad blue eyes lure him back. He couldn't – a child companion broke the rules. It was too dangerous, and would hurt far too much.

It can't happen.

'Just leave. Don't look back,' the Doctor muttered, increasing the speed of his paces when the field came into view. He fished in his pockets for the TARDIS key, and exhaled a long breath when he reached the door. Hanging his head with defeat, he turned around to see the determined little girl running towards him.

He should have known it could never be that easy.

'You're following me,' was all he could say, shoulders slumped with regret and dread.

'You have my key.' Chloe pointed to the one in his hand – the key marked with "NESS" that had granted her access the first time.

He wanted to argue it was technically his key, but the will to fight it had gone from him. The Doctor never did find that list of reasons as to why a child companion was such a very, very bad idea and why he mustn't ever have one.

He looked at Chloe's big, pleading blue eyes that asked all the questions she didn't say. Madam Vastra had told him if there was ever a time to break one of his own rules, this was it.

Chloe was a huge mystery, and had what it took to be a brilliant companion, but she was a child. That came with another set of rules and adjustments. It came with more than the Doctor even had to think about for a very long time. A hum from inside his mind, belonging to the TARDIS, only further crumbled his protests. Whoever Chloe was, wherever she'd come from, the TARDIS wanted her on board – even when it was his beloved ship who had once shown him why having children on board was not the best idea.

'Oh, Chloe.' He offered her a smile. 'You are something so impossibly new. How can I say no to that?'

'Can I come?' she asked quietly, her eyes staring into his own despite the substantial height difference. 'Please? I'll be good, I promise. I'll make my bed and everything!'

She sounded so desperate, so eager, and yet the loneliness in her eyes was so achingly familiar.

Who was the Doctor to follow the rules, anyway - even his own?

'This is not just a spaceship, Chloe,' he said. 'It can travel anywhere in time and space. Everything that's out there is big, scary, and _so_ wonderful. But it can also be very dangerous. You have to promise to do everything I say. Don't wander off, and don't touch anything unless I say it's okay.'

'I promise.'

She was eight, completely human, and utterly confusing in ways new things were, yet the depth f sincerity of her words in that moment was what fully won him over. He'll take her on a few trips, to see how she goes, and maybe then he'll track down that list and work out if she could really stay. For now, however, he had a new companion. An impossible and risky companion, but one who had already won over his hearts.

'Well then, Chloe...' the Doctor unlocked the door and stepped aside. 'Come on in.' He smiled, gesturing to the door.

Chloe, beaming at him and stuttering half-formed thank-yous, hurried forward and did the oddest of all things he'd seen when welcoming a new companion into his ship. She grabbed hold of the handle, and _pulled_ it open. The TARDIS hummed, and the Doctor could only stare, as Chloe ran inside and seated herself as if she belonged there by his console. She sat cross-legged, looking comfortable in her over-large jumper, and smiled while patiently waiting for him to join her.

'This is either mad or brilliant,' the Doctor said to himself as he stepped inside. 'And that's not new at all - I should know, I'm both.'

* * *

 _Still not sure how this chapter happened to be so long, but I would love to hear your feedback/theories! Up next: DONNA!_


	3. Forget-Me-Not

**~ Forget-Me-Not ~**

The TARDIS didn't leave the field right away. The Doctor intended to, until a book was dropped on his head when he moved to approach the console. It was a TARDIS manual of some sort, one of the few he still had, which gave detailed instructions on child locks and precautions – most of which he would probably disagree with.

He was about to scold the ship for her method of issuing reminders, when he looked over at the giggling near the console. Chloe watched him, sitting up to look over the back of the chair, and he couldn't help smiling back. A child on the TARDIS – oh, this could end so badly even if it began wonderfully. Though that happened with all his companions, he supposed.

Well, except Donna. That was a whirlwind and a half meeting her, and the ending...No, he wouldn't think about that. It was almost as painful as when Rose...Well, for that, "bad" didn't even cover it. He had to stop torturing himself like this.

He'd regenerated; it's a fresh start – he had to move on now.

'So, Chloe...Chloe who?' he asked, tossing the manual onto the console. He faced her, arms crossed, and studied her brightly blue gaze. 'Do you have a last name?'

'No.' She shook her head.

'Why not?' he wondered.

The Doctor aimed his sonic screwdriver over his shoulder, running scans of the controls behind him. Okay, so maybe some adjustments would need to be made before taking off with a child on board.

'You're human. All humans have last names.'

'I don't.' Chloe sat cross-legged on the chair again, watching him peacefully.

How different she looked from the terribly unhappy and scared girl he'd caught flying out of the carriage earlier.

'Last names are boring.'

'Can't argue with that,' he agreed. 'Okay! We can't go anywhere just yet. As my ship has so rudely reminded me, having a child companion on board means I need to jiffy things around a bit before we leave.'

'What's a com-panny-on?' the child sounded the word out, probably using it for the first time.

'A best mate. Oh, no – no, not mates!' He frowned at himself. Can't make that mistake again. 'Friend. Yes, best friend. Buddy. Pal. Partner in crime – well, hopefully not actually in crime because then we'd get arrested and in some places that would make you their queen and...Forget I said that. It means you travel with me and we're going be best friends, and do best friend things. What do best friends do? Get matching T-shirts? Or hats. Ooh, we could do that!'

'Never had a best friend before,' she said. 'Only a tree.'

'Yes, where did that tree come from?' He remembered. 'Don't find a lot of semi-telepathic trees in Victorian London. Now Brazil, however...'

'My grandfather planted it when he made the house.'

'He built the house himself? And, but-but that's an oak tree. Four years, and it looks at least fifty!' The mystery deepened, and the Doctor was having trouble keeping track of it all. 'Impressive man, your grandfather. Not often I find a harmless mystery, wrapped in an enigma, with a dash of impossible.'

'He was bored and we needed a house to live in. My aunt didn't want us and my uncle still lived with her then, in her silly house.' Chloe looked away.

'What's wrong with silly?'

'It smells like pears.' The ginger girl crinkled her face in such a way he had to bite back a laugh.

'Point taken.' He nodded seriously. 'Right, let's focus. Important things to do. Now, if I say to go pack some clothes and necessities to travel with and put in your room on the TARDIS, while I make some alterations to the ship, will you be okay with that?'

'Pack stuff from my aunt and grandfather's house?' She stared intently at him, and he already knew the answer. 'Leave the box, get some clothes, and come back?'

'Yes. Exactly that.'

'No.' Chloe crossed her arms over her jumper. 'What if you forget to wait for me and just leave?'

'I won't.' He knew she wouldn't believe him. The Doctor crouched in front of the child anyway and looked into her sad, blue eyes. 'Whoever left you behind, Chloe – whoever forgot you, I'm not those people. Do I even look like people?'

'You look like a grown-up,' she said stubbornly. 'Grown-ups lie all the time.'

The Doctor straightened, knowing it would be unkind to contradict her words. Though he took mild offence to being called a grown-up, he knew she was right about the lying. And he was going to lie to her – at some point, he will. He always did. To let her think otherwise wouldn't be fair; it would be a lie in itself.

'Alright. Packing first, then wibbly-wobbly stuff.' He held out his hand and she accepted.

They headed back to the door, which she pushed outwards in a manner that continued to baffle him. He wasn't going to fit through the tiny gaps in the fence, so led her around to the front door and learned she rather despised that option. Oh yes, Chloe was going to be a very interesting companion indeed.

She didn't even need a timeline or a last name for him to see that.

'So, this is your grandfather's house?' He looked around the dusty place filled with many shadows and old coats. There were no paintings or anything on the distastefully brown wallpaper, just a lot of dim lamps and hooks. 'But your uncle lives here?'

'Yeah.' Chloe held his hand tighter, leading the Doctor up the creaking stairs.

'And where is he?' the Doctor asked, curiously turning in all directions to see it all.

The doors were unlocked, the place barely looked lived in at all, and yet so many things were tickling his senses. Smells that didn't make sense, odd temperature spots that weren't quite normal, and all while seeming completely ordinary. With Chloe, this was becoming a pattern. It was driving him mad not knowing, though everything looked ordinarily fine. How could he investigate what was both everything and nothing at all?

'I dunno.' Chloe reached a door, and pushed it open.

Inside was a small window, a rickety old bed without a pillow or sheets, and a wardrobe almost completely free or dust or age.

'He works all day, then is at the pub a lot, and sleeps here when he's had enough of it.'

There were general warning bells in the back of the Doctor's mind, as Chloe lugged a battered suitcase from the bottom of the wardrobe. It looked like something from the early 49th century, designed in the style of the 18th.

'He leaves you here all alone?'

'I told you,' Chloe sighed, turning to frown at him. 'They forget me. _Everyone_ forgets me.'

'Yes.' The Doctor swallowed, bending to observe the pillow and patched blanket underneath the bed. 'They do. Oh, Chloe. If I'd known...'

She pulled clothes from her wardrobe, and raised a loose floorboard to lift out something the Doctor was instantly drawn to. A large, cylinder jar reeking of preservation energy and perception filters. Chloe had to use both her arms just to hold it. Inside was a flower, positioned to look as if it was growing from the bottom of the jar, and he was mesmerised by it.

'Forget-me-not,' the girl said. 'My grandfather picked it when I was born, said one day it'll give me good luck. Still waiting for that.'

The Doctor didn't comment because already things were starting to make sense. The flower – that particular shade of blue the TARDIS chose for Chloe's bedroom door on board the ship.

Her grandfather, whoever he was, could only be incredibly clever.

'This is brilliant.' The Doctor smiled at it, offering to hold the jar while Chloe finished packing. He glanced down, and felt a clench in his hearts at the word printed on the lid. Noble. He reminded himself coincidences did happen, which did nothing to ease the painful reminder and the irony displayed in front of him. A little ginger girl, and a Noble lid sealing in the forget-me-not flower.

Oh yes, the universe could be quite unkind.

'Ready!'

Chloe stood in front of him, eyes wide with anticipation, clutching the handle of a suitcase she could not possibly drag down the stairs on her own.

'Jar for suitcase.' He offered a trade, and she nodded. The jar may be big, but at least it wasn't very heavy.

The Doctor seized hold of the suitcase with one hand, and let Chloe pass in front of him. He kept his other hand on her shoulder, steering her away from hazardous stairs or door frames when the large jar made it difficult for her to see the path in front of her feet. Pausing at the bottom step, she titled her head back to look at him.

'Doctor?' Chloe bit her lip. 'Are there monsters in this house?'

What an odd question.

He released her shoulder and whipped out his sonic screwdriver, scanning just to be sure.

'No.' He shook his head. 'No monsters. Why? Have you seen a monster in this house?'

'I don't think so.' Chloe continued forward to the kitchen. 'Big boy Billy said there were monsters, and the doors sometimes close on their own. I think he was lying.'

'Yeah, he probably was.' The Doctor, not entirely convinced of his own words as he counted the shadows without blinking.

Chloe put the jar on the bare kitchen table, and walked to a drawer near the end of the counter. He hadn't even noticed she'd grabbed the hat of keys when leaving the TARDIS, which she now emptied into the drawer and slammed it shut. She checked the cupboards, revealing the sparse amount of food, and sighed.

'Oh, right!' He slapped his forehead. 'Food! Little human girl, of course. Not to worry – plenty of food on the TARDIS. Blimey, you must be starved by now!'

'I had a banana when I woke up,' Chloe said, gathering the jar back into her arms.

'Bananas are good,' he approved. 'Do you need anything from your aunt's silly pear-smelling house?'

'Yes.'

'Okay,' the Doctor sighed. This was rather domestic and he didn't like it. He'd only barely been talked into bringing Chloe along on the TARDIS as a child companion, and was fighting not to change his mind. The sooner they left, the better he'd feel.

In theory.

'Alright. Let's drop these off and go to your aunt's. Then wibbly-wobbly stuff, food consumption, and we can go have some fun!'

* * *

Chloe swung her feet back and forth under the hammock-styled swing the Doctor had set up for her below the see-through floor. She had a plate of chicken sandwich slices on her lap, and watched where the Doctor sat on his own hammock doing whatever he was doing to the underside of the controls. It startled her at first - all the sparks and noises, but they'd been there for a while and she was already used it to.

Never had packing been so much effort.

She'd only picked the things she would wear more than once, in case the ship only gave her one set of lovely clothes. She got her jar at her grandfather's place, then her locket on a chain from her aunt's. Oh, that was fun – she still giggled at the thought of passing by old lady Madison's house on the way back, and seeing the Doctor being smacked in the face with an umbrella. At least Chloe knew now that was a real thing - not just her own bad luck the one day it happened to her.

They hadn't seen either her uncle or her aunt, and the Doctor asked a lot of questions. Chloe gave up trying to answer them, so the walk back to the TARDIS had been mostly quiet.

The Doctor talked a lot, and sometimes much too fast for her ears to keep up with, but that was okay.

Chewing the last of her sandwich, Chloe looked way up through the floor – it was strange seeing through a floor, but cool as well. Another zap and a yelp from the Doctor brought her attention back to him. He was nearly finished – she knew because he used his sonic screwdriver a lot. That was for checking things, and the other tools were for fixing - or breaking things then fixing them differently.

'Ah-ha! Done!' the Doctor's head emerged, face mostly covered with the shaded goggles Chloe thought looked funny on him. He raised them, and grinned at her. 'Ready for another adventure?'

'Will there be more monsters?' She held tightly to her plate while he lifted her off the swing and onto the ground.

'No,' he answered. 'Wait, should have said "probably not" there. Just in case.'

The Doctor tossed the goggles and went up the ramp to the control console, as she now knew it was called, while Chloe ran ahead to a nearby arch. She bit her lip, and looked over her shoulder to see the Doctor give her an encouraging nod and thumbs up. Counting to five, she walked into the corridor and watched the doors on her right.

Third one, right? Yes! Pushing it open, she hurried to slip the plate into the kitchen sink, and stepped back to watch it wash itself before leaving.

'Where are going? Can we really fly?' Chloe was excited to finally see the new places the Doctor had promised to show her. She hadn't even bothered unpacking in eagerness to do something new and fun.

'Well, it would be a rather rubbish spaceship if we couldn't go anywhere,' the Doctor said. 'Now, let's give these child button-thingies a whirl!' He pushed an orange button, and several nearby levers locked into place. Seatbelts sprouted on all the chairs, and a few round things on the walls changed to rainbow rings.

He watched the rings appear, and didn't seem to know what they were for.

'Seatbelts?' He rolled his eyes at the chairs. 'Fine. Now, before we actually go anywhere with lots of exploring, and probably running, I've got something special in mind. Up.'

'Up?' Chloe titled her head back, expecting to see something on the ceiling. All she saw was more round things and lights.

'Yes. Up.' His voice had something about it that made her excited to see where they were going, even if Chloe had no idea what "up" meant.

He did something at the controls, and the floor shook at their feet. Chloe, too far away from something solid to hang onto, clutched the Doctor's jacket fearfully. His hand came around her back to keep her steady, then it all stopped.

'Okay, now two rules,' he told her firmly. 'One, stay close. Two, don't let go of my hand. Not for anything, got it?'

Chloe nodded, and gripped his hand tightly as he led her to the door. She didn't know what to expect, but was scared if she had to stay so close to him the whole time. He pulled the door open, and what she saw didn't even make sense at first.

Slowly, she took in the colours and shapes, and lights and clouds – everything that made up her first sight of the universe.

'Space,' the Doctor said beside her, holding her hand close to his side. 'Welcome, Chloe, to space.'

'What is it?' She gasped, moving closer to the doorway. 'It's so pretty!'

'That it is.' He nodded, pulling her down beside him so they could sit with their feet dangling over the edge of the box. 'It's gases. Rocks. Light. Time. Everything. Some dots are stars, others planets. It's all so alive.'

Chloe gulped, watching her feet swinging lightly in nothing, and tried to listen to the Doctor's words. Whatever it all was, she'd never seen anything so amazing in all her life. Glancing up, she saw stars that looked more like the ones she counted at night - when she'd wander the streets on her way back to her grandfather's house at night.

'Do you ever wish on a star, Doctor?'

'No,' he said, sounding sad. 'Not anymore.'

'Why not?' Chloe moved closer, watching his face as she held onto his left hand.

'I've lost too much.' He glanced at her, and she waited for him to say more. 'For someone as old as I am, and who's lost as much as I have, Chloe - wishing is a very dangerous thing.'

She looked back at space, with all those colours and stars everywhere. She picked a really bright one, and smiled. She always wondered what the sky looked like up close, and there she was floating around it in a box.

'Maybe you could wish not to lose anything again?'

'That simple, eh?' He followed her gaze to the same star, a small smile forming on his face.

He'd used his tired, old-sounding voice again.

'Yeah.' Chloe nodded. 'But only if you believe it – wishes don't come true if you don't believe it,' she reminded him, and waited.

He stared up at the star, but didn't say anything else. They sat there in silence for a while, and Chloe loved every moment of it. There was so much to look at, and it made her head feel weird. It was too much – too much for her to think about, too confusing and big for her to understand. She didn't know what to do with it all.

'Okay, that's enough sight-seeing for now.' The Doctor held her other hand and lifted her up onto her feet somehow. Chloe giggled at the swooping feeling of flying up from nothingness around her feet to standing back on the hard floor of the TARDIS. He shut the doors and let go of her hands, then headed back to the console promising her a first real trip. Chloe followed him and knew he hadn't made a wish on any of the stars.

That's okay - she made one for him.

'So, where do you want to start?'

'I dunno.' Chloe fidgeted on her favourite chair, clicking the seatbelt into place – it went around her tummy and over her shoulders, making her feel both stuck and safe. 'Where can we go?'

'Anywhere you like.' He smiled. 'Well, almost anywhere. Child on board now, got to keep an eye on those things. So – we can go forward in time, or backwards in time. We can see entirely new worlds – planets, stars and spaceships! All of it, anything and everything!'

'Wow!' Chloe couldn't believe it.

No, really, she didn't believe him. How could anything do that – take them anywhere, in any time, all over? And he asked her to pick, but how? She didn't know where or when everything was - which one was the best and most fun?

'Tell you what, come here.'

Chloe unbuckled the seatbelt and hopped off the chair, walking to where he stood on the other side of the console. He pointed to something with lots of little rings stuck together in a cylinder – each ring had a number on it.

'Date, month and year,' the Doctor explained, which Chloe frowned at. She hated those. 'Just give it a spin! We'll go whenever it lands. Time is good – I think a whole new planet might be a bit much for first go.'

Chloe tried to reach on her tip-toes, as the cylinder was higher on the console and further out of reach, and felt the Doctor lift her under the arms so she could see it better. She touched the first number - a four - and smiled. She spun it as strong as she could, watching the ring go round and round until it stopped on a nine. She did it for each of them, and hurried back to her seat to buckle up for the ride.

He'd already warned her at least five times that travelling in his spaceship box was very bumpy.

'9th of May, 2028. Okay...' the Doctor didn't look too excited when he checked the numbers, and Chloe squirmed thinking it wasn't a good choice. It sounded like forever away to her. He glanced at her, and grinned. 'Okay!'

He lowered a lever, and Chloe screamed.

Everything moved and shook as if trying to throw them into the roof. She clung to her seatbelt, and squeezed her eyes shut. There were lights flashing, something rattling loudly underneath the floor, and sparks shooting all over the place. The Doctor yelled as well, and laughed, but Chloe didn't know what to do. Then she heard the sound – that amazing noise which made her chase the box the night it started to snow. She opened her eyes, and realised she was okay. It was loud and scary, but they were okay.

It must be what spaceships do.

When they landed, if the thumping sound meant that, and everything stilled again, Chloe looked over at the Doctor. He stared at a screen, eyebrows scrunched together, and kept tapping some buttons.

'2nd of April, 2011? No, no – that's not right!' He grumbled, looking up at the thing in the middle. He pulled another lever, and the landing sound was heard again. 'No, no – _come on!'_

'What happened? Are we in 2028?'

'No.' The Doctor sank into a seat behind him, crossing his arms. 'No, we're not. The TARDIS won't budge. For some reason - some annoying little reason, she insists we land here and now. April 2nd, 2011...What's so important about that? All these signs, screens and counters telling us exactly when and were we are – taking the fun out of it.'

Chloe went quiet. He was in a bad mood, and she didn't know if that was her fault or the ship's. She looked over to the door, then back at the Doctor.

Carefully unbuckling her seatbelt, she slipped down from the seat.

'Does it matter?' She tapped his elbow cautiously, and took a quick step back when he looked at her. 'It's not Victorian London, is it? Can we see it anyway?'

'Oh, you are so right.' He gave her a wide smile. 'Yes, who cares? 2011 - good enough for a first trip. Alright, Chloe with no last name, let's go see what April 2nd, 2011 has for us!'

Chloe dutifully gripped his hand, and was about to head for the door when the ship gave a strange hum. The Doctor paused dramatically, and swerved madly as if being chased by a bee – taking Chloe around in circles with him. A glow came from up the stairs – the same ones Chloe took to go to the new bedroom the TARDIS had given her the first night on board.

'Did you bring anything on board that glows?' the Doctor looked sideways at her.

'My flower!' Chloe yanked free of his hand and ran for the stairs, ignoring the yells behind her as he hurried to follow. Fear of getting lost gone, Chloe burst into the bedroom and saw the jar with her flower was glowing on the floor next to the bed.

'Has it done this before?'

Chloe let the Doctor's hand on her shoulder keep her back while he scanned the jar with his sonic screwdriver. She didn't want to say, but the stern look he gave her made her feel nervous.

'When we got to Victorian London,' she mumbled, staring at her boots. 'It wouldn't stop glowing, so my grandfather drew on the lid and it stopped.'

'Noble.'

His voice was scary now. Not mad or angry, but Chloe moved away from him just in case. He was looking at a wall, with the blankness she'd seen once on her grandfather's face when he tried to remember something very complicated.

'Do you know anything else about this flower, Chloe?' He grasped her shoulders, looking straight at her. She whimpered, not wanting to be in trouble, and he let her go.

The Doctor crouched in front of her, darting a look to the jar once and again.

'It's important. I need to know - has anyone said anything about this flower?'

'I dunno.' She fidgeted, struggling to remember. 'It was picked on my birthday. It's for good luck. Grandfather said it...It has a name.'

'What was the name?' His eyes were wide. 'Chloe, what was the name?'

'Donna,' Chloe swallowed. 'The Donna Flower. Is that bad? Did I do something wrong?'

'No, no.' He rubbed a hand over her head, standing. 'You've done nothing wrong, I promise. It's not doing anything, just glowing. Reacting to...Something, but contained. Come along, let's see what's waiting for us in 2011 that's got the flower all excited.'

His hand slipped over hers to pull her away. She let him, while keeping her head turned to watch the flower as they left the room. The last glimpse showed a strand of gold circling around the stem before it faded. Chloe reached up, and touched the golden braid of her hair.

They were the same colour.

'April 2nd, 2011,' the Doctor muttered, standing at the closed door with Chloe's hand held in his. 'The Donna Flower, a forget-me-not. 2011.' He pulled the door open, and they stepped outside into the bright sunlight.

The Doctor looked around, tense and alert, while Chloe could only smile at how non-Victorian London it all was. She saw weird buildings, lots of strange cars, no carriages or too much brown. There was colour, odd clothes that were both new and familiar, and so much more to see than she'd ever seen before.

She took a deep breath, and felt hungry again.

'What's that smell?'

'What?' The Doctor looked down at her. 'Oh. Chips.'

Chloe wanted to ask what those were, but felt his hand tighten around hers. She glanced up at him, and worried something was really wrong. He looked so sad and moved his eyes too fast. She tried to see what he was, but it was all so new and different that everything stood out.

Chloe decided to wait, and surely enough he soon sighed and offered her a smile.

'I love chips,' he said, leading her to a tall post with lights on the top that seemed to tell the cars what to do. 'It's been a while. Are you still hungry?'

'A little bit.' Chloe nodded. 'Is chips food?'

'Oh, Chloe, you have so much so see and learn.' He took her across the street and into a shop. Chloe shied away from it all, moving closer to the Doctor's side and never let go of his hand. It smelled and looked weird, and the people talked differently.

She knew carriages and brown - not cars and colour.

'Can I get you anything, Love?' A woman at the counter asked, looking down at Chloe with a friendly smile.

She seemed nice enough, but Chloe could only hide her face behind the Doctor's sleeve.

'A bit shy is she? Big day out with Daddy, eh?'

'Uh, no, we...Chips,' the Doctor said. 'We'd like some chips.'

Chloe kept her face pressed to the back of his sleeve, but one word the lady said was burning through her mind. Daddy.

'Chloe?'

She felt a tug on her hand, and the sleeve moved away from her face. The Doctor crouched in front of her, holding a cardboard thing with yellow sticks in it. It smelled delicious. She looked around, nervous by the things people talked into or tapped on, and how fast or loud everything was.

'Are you alright?' he asked. 'Is it bit much?'

Chloe wanted to nod, but looked down at the chips instead when her tummy rumbled. Someone pushed on the top of a can nearby and liquid splashed from it, making Chloe jump. She saw a cat-shaped clock on the wall, even if she didn't know how to tell time. There were posters, screens and people everywhere.

And there was one word scarier than all of it - Daddy.

'Oi!' the Doctor frowned at the man with the can, who almost knocked Chloe over in his rush to leave.

Chloe accepted the chips given to her, and clutched them as the Doctor picked her up off the ground. He'd never carried her like that before, but she was relieved not to fight her way through the increasing crowd. She held onto the chips and looped her arms over his shoulders, feeling better already.

He put her down shortly after, and Chloe saw a stretch of green grass ahead of them. A park.

'Are these chips?' she spoke, holding up the container to make sure.

Chloe saw that mum and dad look on his face again – the one he'd given her at the manor with the ice monsters. She didn't want him to think she was too scared to travel with him. It was just such a shock the first time, to see how different it all was.

'Yes.' He continued to watch her, directing her to a bench not too far behind the TARDIS. He took a chip and popped it into his mouth, waiting for Chloe to mirror his action.

'Yum!' She grinned, licking her lips. It tasted warm and salty, but better than any of her favourite foods - even chicken. 'Can we have this all the time?'

'Ha, best not.' He dropped down on the bench beside her. 'You'd probably get sick of them eventually. Better than vegetables though, eh?'

'Yeah!'

They sat for a while, even after the chips were gone. Chloe watched people passing by with dogs or on bikes. 2011 was a year, she reminded herself. A year - that was a big one and took lots of time to change. Whatever that meant. She liked 2011 though, and thought it was much more interesting once she got used to it being really different from Victorian London.

'I like it here,' she told him, swinging her boots back and forth. 'Do they have TVs?'

'Yes. Big ones with lots of colour. We could probably see some in a shop window. Feel up for a walk?'

'Yeah!' Chloe jumped off the bench and held her hand to him. He gripped it, and looked around the area. The sunshine had faded, but she was sure it wasn't time to be night yet.

He looked up as well, and frowned.

'We better grab an umbrella, just in case.' He walked back to the TARDIS, and had barely put his key into the lock when someone called out to them.

'Oi!'

Chloe and the Doctor turned. She smiled at the sight of someone else with hair as fiery as hers, while he seemed to stop moving entirely. He stared, eyes wide, as the woman approached them with long strides.

'Who do you think you are?' she demanded. 'Where's the Doctor? What are you doing with his TARDIS?'

'D-Donna?'

'How do you know my name?' the woman sounded very angry, and Chloe moved closer to the Doctor's side.

He called her Donna, though - like her flower!

'No one, I...Hang on, you remember me? You said "Doctor" and-and "TARDIS". This is April, 2011!' He stuttered. 'You can't possibly...What?'

'Who are you?' she asked again, louder.

'Donna, it's me – the Doctor! You remember me?' He delighted, and Chloe was just confused.

'No, you're not. You're skinny - I'll give you that, and you got weird hair but you can't be...' Her anger lessened. 'Did you go and change your face? Is that something you just do without telling anyone? And you have a kid now? How long has it been, then? Is she part alien or something?'

'No, no! Absolutely not – this is Chloe. She's my companion. Sort of a new thing.' He hurried forward, grinning with wide eyes. 'How can you remember me?'

'Doctor?' Donna blinked. 'I walked up and down this street for hours! Finally you show up, and you're all different. But it's you...Yeah. Oh, my God - it's you. It's really you!'

And now they were hugging. Chloe stood there, having no idea why the woman was crying or the Doctor spinning her around in a hug. Grown-ups were getting weirder than she was used to.

'How do you remember me?!' He exclaimed, letting her go suddenly.

'Oi, no need to yell!' she snapped. 'And I don't know. I woke up this morning with a note saying to meet you here. I just knew, so I did.'

She hit his arm, and he yelped.

'What was that for?'

'You made me forget!' Donna frowned. Chloe didn't know if she liked a grown-up who yelled so much and hit the Doctor. 'Then left. All those things we saw, all of it...It was just gone.'

'Donna, I had to. I couldn't...'

'I know,' she sighed. 'Just...don't do that again, Spaceman!'

'Noted.' The Doctor nodded, reaching to take hold of Chloe's hand. He didn't look at her, but it was enough to remind Chloe he hadn't forgotten she was there. It was a reassurance that kept her quiet, but no longer afraid.

Donna must be a friend too – he seemed to have a lot of them.

'Is that a bow tie? You're wearing bow ties now?'

'Yes. Bow ties are cool.' He adjusted it with one hand.

'What happened to the suit? The stripes, the blue – you've changed so much.' Donna looked him up and down.

'Is that okay?'The Doctor watched her, while Chloe tugged his hand. 'Right, sorry. Chloe, this is my best friend Donna. You can have more than one best friend. She used to travel with me, a long time ago, but then she couldn't anymore. Long story.'

'Hello,' Chloe said, peering around the Doctor's sleeve in case the woman decided to be loud again.

'Hello, Sweetheart.' Donna smiled. She suddenly seemed really nice, as she crouched a bit and offered a hand to shake. 'Nice to meet you, Chloe.'

Chloe didn't shake her hand, but moved forward to return the smile.

'Is it safe for her - you having a kid on board? Who is she? Did you kidnap her too? And she's not...alien or something?'

'Don't start,' the Doctor grumbled. 'We're going for a walk. Chloe's never seen 2011 before, or had chips. Care to join us?'

'Where's she from then?' Donna asked. 'She sounds Irish.'

'Does she?' He glanced at Chloe. 'Never noticed.'

'You _never noticed?'_ Donna repeated. 'But she's a child! Is that allowed, having children companions? Are you sure she's not yours?'

'She's not mine.' He ran a hand over his face, then straightened. 'Come along, Donna Noble - let's go for a walk and you can explain how you remember who I am while still being alive.'

'I told you - I _don't know,_ ' Donna said, walking on Chloe's other side.

They talked, mostly in fast or loud tones, while Chloe kept up and held onto the Doctor's hand. She took in the sights of 2011, and was most interested in woman across the street a bit behind them. She turned to get a better look, seeing the blonde hair and red jacket.

She waved at Chloe, who waved back.

'Who are you waving at?' the Doctor startled her by stopping suddenly.

'The lady...' Chloe pointed, but the blonde-haired woman was gone. 'She looked nice. Doctor, can we get more chips before we go?' She asked, looping her fingers around her golden braid of hair as they walked down the streets of 2011.

The TARDIS had made the right choice in bringing them there.

* * *

 _Hopefully everyone is still enjoying this story!_


	4. The Rainbow Running Shoes

**Author's Note:** _I have decided most of the chapters from here on will be a bit longer now, as they always end up that way anyway. Thank you to every one of you so far who have reviewed, favourited, and/or followed this story. I'm glad people are still enjoying it! Note that the delay in upload was because I took some time off the past week or so. Onwards!_

* * *

 **~ The Rainbow Running Shoes ~**

'Do we have to go through this _again?'_ Donna complained. The Doctor scanned her with the sonic screwdriver, the green light flickering over her face and general direction. 'And I see you got a new one of those.'

'Yeah, fried the other one shortly after regeneration,' he said, eyes scrunched with concentration. 'Not on purpose. Nearly set fire to a workshop.'

Chloe was sitting beside Donna, on the park bench behind the TARDIS, happily swinging her feet while licking her chocolate ice cream. She hadn't said much since they got back from the walk, though the Doctor determined she was just wary of Donna. Chloe had adjusted well to being in 2011 now, after spending four years in Victorian London for half of her life. It gave him the space to properly focus on the impossibility of Donna sitting there, talking about all the things she was never expected to remember.

'Any particular workshop?'

'Eh, Lenardo Da Vinci.' He shrugged, still scanning.

'What? Are you kidding me?'

'Donna, none of this makes any sort of sense!' the Doctor couldn't help being outwardly frustrated.

He was nervous and confused – there was no way she could just suddenly remember him without any form of harmful consequences. If there was, he wouldn't have had to endure that horrible goodbye as the only way to save her life.

'What about your husband? What was his name...Shawn Temple?'

'Husband? What are you on about?' Donna frowned. 'I'm not _married!_ Do I _look_ married? Can you see a ring on this finger, Dumbo?'

'Yes, you were! I was there. You...You...' the Doctor sank onto the bench between the two gingers – one who ignored him in favour of her ice cream, while the other wouldn't stop staring at him. 'Tell me again.'

'I woke up-'

'Where?' he interrupted.

'My flat in London. England, 2011. Planet Earth.' Donna rolled her eyes. ' _Anyway,_ I woke up and-'

'When?'

Donna gave him a sharp glare, inhaled a breath, and looked over at Chloe. Facing him again, she seemed calm enough not to slap him. He wasn't certain, though, and inched back just in case.

'I don't know, sometime after seven? Yeah, after seven,' Donna said. 'My flat, about seven in the morning in London, I woke up and remembered you. It was like the last year and a half was just a dream. There was a note on the bedside table.' She handed it to him.

He scanned the yellow sticky-note, licked it, sniffed it, and brought it so close to his face he went cross-eyed. Nothing - completely Earth 2011 paper. The handwriting was hers, stating the address and "afternoon" on it, with "TARDIS" added in the corner as if that needed clarifying. Someone knew he was going to be there, even when he'd ended up in that place and time by mistake. Well, his mistake; the TARDIS had been rather adamant to get them there.

Whatever was going on, or had already happened, the Doctor didn't accept any of it one tiny bit. Donna remembered him, and found him that same day – she was unharmed and happy to see him.

No, he'd never been that lucky. It could not be trusted.

'How long has it been?' Donna asked. 'You look so young but at the same time so much older, Doctor.'

'Years,' he replied, deliberately unspecific. 'I saw you, a few times before I...Well, changed.' the Doctor swallowed and looked away.

'But you never said hello.' She sighed. 'I'm sorry. I knew something was missing; something I was forgetting, and things didn't make sense but...you _knew._ All that time, and you could never even say hello.'

'I try not to think about it.'

'Yeah, well I'm back now.' She nodded.

'Donna...'

'What? You don't want me anymore?' Donna stared at him with the sad, worried look she'd had while standing in the TARDIS doorway before he'd welcomed her back after the Adipose.

'I remember you; I'm fine. I was gonna be with you forever – the rest of my life. That hasn't changed. Has it, Doctor?'

'But are you really fine, Donna?' He peered closely at her. 'This is impossible! Actually, properly impossible.'

'Thought you didn't believe in impossible - just very unlikely?'

'It came true,' the young voice to their left said.

Chloe looked up at him with chocolate smeared over her mouth and chin. He dug for a tissue in his pocket, shifting various knick-knacks aside, and offered it to her while waiting for the girl to explain.

'I made a wish for you,' Chloe smiled proudly. 'You didn't believe, so I wished for you. I wished that the stuff you lost will come back, and you don't lose them again.'

'Sweet kid.' Donna smiled.

'Did it work, my wish?' The child's blue eyes shone with incredible amounts of hope and innocence. The Doctor didn't have the hearts to tell her wishing on a star was purely human superstition.

It called for a different sort of lie than he was used to.

'Yes, probably,' he said, averting his eyes. Donna watched him with a smile and it annoyed him further.

The situation was _very_ serious, and she acted as if all was well. She'd just hop back inside the TARDIS and they'd pick up where they left off. He'd regenerated, Donna had gotten married yet somehow wasn't, and there was no way he could think of that she could remember him and be okay.

He couldn't allow himself to hope until he knew exactly what was going on.

'I need to speak with Wilfred.'

* * *

Chloe sat in front of the TV for a while. She was comfortable on the sofa with Donna's mum, just watching cartoons like she used to so long ago. Donna's house had a lot of stuff in it that were new to Chloe, but she was getting used to things changing all over the place now. The grandfather was outside on a hill, whatever that meant, and the Doctor had followed Donna there.

The TV was the only thing that convinced Chloe to stay behind. The mum was nice enough to sit with her, even if she frowned and shook her head a lot whenever talking about Donna. Sylvia, her name was, and she'd promised Chloe to make sure the Doctor didn't forget her.

Chloe didn't believe her, as grown-ups broke promises almost as much as they lied, but she _really_ liked their big TV.

'Where are your parents?' Sylvia asked after a while.

'I dunno.' Chloe shrugged.

'Who do you live with?'

'The Doctor,' she decided.

'And before that?' Sylvia didn't sound very happy anymore.

'My aunt and uncle, but they forgot me all the time.' She looked at Sylvia. 'Now I want to forget them.'

'And the Doctor, does he take care of you? Are you safe?'

Chloe looked back to the TV, deciding she'd rather be sitting alone. Grown-ups ask a lot of questions now, and she doesn't always know the right answer.

When did they stop making up an answer for her if she didn't give one?

'Ah, there's the newest member of the family!' The grandfather joined them with a smile and wave of his arms.

His name was Wilfred, the Doctor had told her.

'Chloe, isn't it?'

'Dad, don't confuse the girl.' Sylvia shook her head, while Chloe watched them.

'I'm not,' he said. 'She travels with the Doctor now, so that makes her family too.'

'Where are those two?' Sylvia sighed.

'Yelling to the rooftops. He's so different now, but still nothing's changed with those two.'

'She wants to go back, doesn't she?' The mum had a face that looked both sad and angry.

Chloe decided to focus on the cartoons instead of trying to understand grown-ups. They made even less sense in 2011.

'We always knew, if she ever properly remembered him, that she would. Can't stay away from them aliens, our Donna,' he said. 'That's what they're yelling about. I think Donna's winning though. That's still the same.'

'But is it _safe?'_ Sylvia put a hand on Chloe's shoulder, which made her tense up. 'He has a little girl now, and after what happened with Donna last time...'

'I know, Sweetheart.' Wilfred sat in a nearby chair. 'But he's promised it's different now. He's got all those new safety measures on that ship of his. That wonderful man.'

'Chloe, get your coat!' the Doctor marched through the room looking utterly furious. 'We're leaving.'

'What?' She jumped up, giving the TV one last look, and didn't know what coat he was talking about because she never brought one.

'Donna?' Sylvia stood. 'Must you really leave? After everything that happened...'

Donna came into view, dragging many bags with her. The Doctor came over and took some of them, then hurried off again. Chloe ran after him, right out the door, to leave Donna with her family.

'Donna's coming with us,' the Doctor told her, dropping the TARDIS key into her hands as he was loaded with bags.

She unlocked the door and pulled it open.

'Is that okay?'

Chloe shrugged, looking over her shoulder at Donna hugging her grandfather and mum. She was loud - really loud, but had such a kind smile. She had hair like Chloe did, and was also best friends with the Doctor. That's wasn't so bad. Chloe watched Donna approach them, and decided it was quite alright indeed.

'What the Hell have you done to it?' Donna dropped her bags just inside the doorway.

Chloe ran up the steps and jumped onto her favourite seat, hiding behind it to watch Donna from over the top of the chair.

'What?' the Doctor looked around frantically.

'The TARDIS!' Donna pointed at everything. 'Have you gone and changed _everything?'_

'Do you like it?' he raised an eyebrow, spreading his arms wide.

'Yeah, actually.' She gathered her bags again, looking carefully at the round things on the walls. 'There's a lot more space, and it's less gloomy. Still not sure about the bow tie though.'

'Bow ties are cool, Donna.' He adjusted his red one. 'What do you think, Chloe?'

'Yeah!' She nodded. 'It's cool.'

'See?'

'You just hyped her up on ice cream for the first time – she'll agree with anything you say.' Donna rolled her eyes. 'Where's my room? I spent months finding my way around this ship - now you've gone and moved everything! If I end up in the swimming pool again, I'm gonna slap you.'

The doctor touched a hand to his face, then pointed to the stairs Chloe used to find her own room. He gathered up bags and looked ready to follow Donna, so she quickly got off the seat to avoid being left behind.

'Can I help?' Chloe asked, keeping a safe distance back.

'Uh, yeah.' Donna handed her a small square-ish bag. 'There you go, Sweetheart.'

'Still got the old hat box, I see.' the Doctor commented behind them as they headed up the stairs and down the corridor.

'You never did take me to the planet of the hats.'

Chloe kept close to the Doctor, wary of how deep into the corridor they went before reaching a door with Donna's name on it. She glanced at the pink one across the corridor from it, and saw a rose engraved in gold on the front. She wondered why the Doctor looked so sad when he noticed it.

'It's still here?' Donna pushed open her own door.

Chloe tried to look inside, but couldn't see with the two bag-carrying grown-ups in the way.

'Yes,' the Doctor sighed, glancing across the hall then back as if the sight of the other door hurt him. 'They always are.'

Chloe heard a hum from the box, and turned back to the rose door. She put Donna's bag down and walked to it, looking up at the golden flower. She touched her palm to the pink wood, and felt how warm it was. Her bedroom door wasn't warm like that. The rose door didn't have a handle though. She turned when the Doctor headed back off to the console room.

Chloe hurried to keep up, and fiddled with the golden braid of hair that hung over her left ear.

~ xx ~

Nothing exciting happened after Donna settled in TARDIS with them.

The Doctor took her off to some room to do tests, with Donna complaining the whole way, and Chloe finally decided it was okay to be on her own inside the spaceship box. There wasn't a lot to do, so she just sat on the seat for a while to swing her boots back and forth. Then she walked around the console, just to have a look at all the funny things there.

Hearing a sound, she turned to see a blue ball roll over and stop at her feet. Smiling, she picked it up, swerving to see where it came from. Hearing a hum nearby, Chloe followed it through the arch and beyond where the kitchen was.

She warily clutched the ball to her chest, and kept walking.

There was a door printed with a yellow smiley face – a simple drawing made of two dots and a line. Pushing it open, she gasped at the floor made entirely of something pillow-like with lots of balls waiting to be played with. Tossing her blue ball in with the others like it, she watched it bounce lightly off a red one that sent a yellow ball into the air. Chloe ran in, diving onto the pillows, and giggled as the balls fell all around her. She crawled, kicked, and jumped without having to worry about getting hurt. Even the walls felt oddly soft somehow.

Her laughter echoed through the room, and carried down the corridors, which was probably how Donna and the Doctor were able to find her so quickly.

'This is new,' the Doctor said, looking around.

'Oh, she's loving it!' Donna grinned.

Chloe turned to smile at them, and tossed a green ball at the Doctor. He caught it, looking surprised. Donna grabbed the ball and threw it back, which Chloe missed but returned with a purple one. These grown-ups were much more fun than the others she'd known, Chloe decided, as the Doctor and Donna came into the room to play with her. The three of them were laughing and falling everywhere, but it was the most fun she'd had in a long time.

'I feel ridiculous!' Donna grinned, leaning against the wall to catch her breath. 'Oh, I've missed this.'

'What, feeling ridiculous?' the Doctor asked, trying to stand only to slip and land on his back. He stared at the balls raining down on him, as if startled by his own complete lack of grace.

'Yeah!' Donna tossed a red ball to Chloe, who missed and fell down beside the Doctor. 'Alright, Sweetheart?'

'Yeah!' Chloe nodded, crawling to grab the Doctor's raised knee as something solid to right herself with.

He just sat there, watching her and Donna with a silly grin on his face.

They stayed in the room until Chloe felt hungry, then headed to the kitchen for dinner. The Doctor made them something with eggs and cheese, which Donna sighed at and Chloe loved. That was when her eyes felt heavy and she couldn't keep her chin up at the table.

'Bedtime, young traveller!' the Doctor announced.

Chloe's only movement was to let her head drop to the table while in mid-yawn. She felt the Doctor's arms scoop her up to carry her like he had at the chip shop, and sleepily looped her arms around his neck. She rested her head to his shoulder, closing her eyes and feeling warm all over.

She felt a kiss to her head, and the gentle fall into the bed.

The Doctor stood over the sleeping girl, and glanced at the jar containing the normal-looking flower stored on the new bedside table. The lights bedroom dimmed, and he left the room – almost bumping into Donna at the doorway.

'Who is she really, Doctor?' she asked, following him back to the console room.

'A companion,' he waved his hand dismissively. 'Found her in Victorian London, thought she'd like an adventure.'

'Yeah, but, _really?'_ Donna watched him carefully, which he tried to ignore. 'She's a little girl and you're looking after her like...'

'Like what?' the Doctor turned.

'You've got that look.'

'What look?' He swerved away, pretending her thoughts on the matter weren't being projected through her expression.

'The look you had with Jenny,' Donna spoke in the quietest voice she'd used all day. 'You've changed your face, Doctor, but it's the same look.'

'No, no look!' he denied. 'That's different. It's not like that – it can _never_ be like that.'

'Doctor-'

'No. She's a companion who happens to be a child. I have a duty of care, that's all.' He turned and walked off, disappearing into the corridors in hope Donna would let him be. He had to check her scans and work out what was going on, and why no one remembered her getting married last year.

He had much more important things to think about than what look Donna could possibly be talking about.

* * *

The TARDIS had given Chloe more new clothes to wear, already placed at the end of her bed when she woke. Chloe was happy to see the same jumper she'd quickly come to love, folded with the jeans and shirt.

She made her way to the console room with freshly brushed teeth and hair, to discover the Doctor had something new for her as well.

'You'll need these,' he said, holding out a pair of the brightest rainbow shoes she'd ever seen.

'Wow!' Chloe cuddled the shoes to her chest. 'For me?'

'There's a lot of running to do.' Donna smiled from nearby. 'Are you hungry? We had an early breakfast, but I can make you something...'

'I had a banana,' she answered.

The Doctor smiled and looked at the bit in the middle of the console, placing his palm against it.

He turned his attention to the buttons and dials, and Chloe tried to decide which adults to ask for a bit of help from.

'Donna?' Chloe nervously approached where the woman stood near a railing. 'Can you...?'

Losing the words, she held up a butterfly clip she'd found in the bathroom the day before. She pointed to her hair on the right, opposite the golden braid, and tilted her head to make it fall over her eyes like an annoying curtain.

'Oh, of course!' Donna smiled, taking the clip. 'It's very pretty. Love the hair.'

Chloe grinned, looking at Donna's own fiery hair. She'd never met anyone with the same colour before. She hopped onto the chair while Donna crouched to tuck some hair into the clip, as requested.

'That's is a lovely braid. Did you colour it?'

Chloe touched the golden braid on the other side, and noticed the Doctor halted his actions at the question. It was just hair, why were they so interested in it? She did like how pretty it was, but no one had really noticed it before.

'No, it's always been yellow.' Chloe accepted the mirror the Doctor offered her with a serious face. She smiled at her reflection, showing how lovely the butterfly clip looked in her hair.

'It got tied it up when it was long enough. My grandfather said it's supposed to be that way.'

'Do you know why?' the Doctor asked.

Donna tied the white laces of the new rainbow shoes Chloe had slipped on over purple socks. She shrugged at the question, wriggling her toes inside the rainbow shoes.

'Ready to get back out there, Donna?' he offered her a smile. 'All of time and space. Well, with a few adjustments.' He glanced at Chloe.

'Oh, I was born ready!' Donna grinned.

Chloe quickly buckled up her seatbelt like before, which Donna noticed with quite a startled reaction.

'You have seatbelts?' she gasped. 'You have _seatbelts!_ All that throwing around and holding on for our lives and _you have seatbelts?!'_

The Doctor chose not to answer, and quickly lowered a lever that shook the TARDIS into movement. Donna grabbed the railing and laughed, which the Doctor joined in. Chloe thought there was something different about these grown-ups - they didn't act anything like the ones she'd been around all her life.

They were happier and much more confusing, but Chloe liked them a lot.

Hearing the landing thump, Chloe unbuckled and hurried to the door. She heard the Doctor call her name, but she'd intended to stop there anyway. He reached her, exhaling with relief, and waited for Donna to straighten her jacket.

'Alien planet, yeah?' Donna looked worried and kept staring at Chloe.

'It's fine. No monsters here,' he said, curling his fingers around Chloe's raised hand. 'Probably not monsters. Got to remember the _"probably not"_ there.'

'So it's safe?'

'Yes, Donna, it's safe,' he huffed, rolling his eyes. 'I checked everything, and the new child protection thingamabobs. The atmospheric filters, oxygen quantities, radiation meters, terrain stability, temperature ratios – and there's no wars, revolutions, hostile bargain sales, or etcetera.'

'Okay. So, brand new planet?' Donna nodded. 'You excited, Chloe?'

'No.' She squirmed, tugging the Doctor's hand. 'Are aliens like monsters?'

'No, no! Absolutely not.' the Doctor shook his head. 'Alien just means they're from another planet. You're human, so you're from planet Earth. To them, you're an alien too. It's all very complicated, but you'll get the hang of it. Now, aliens might look very different and speak funny but that's okay. You're safe, as long as you don't let go of my hand.'

Chloe nodded, and fidgeted. She counted to five, and stepped outside with the grown-ups into the green sunlight. There was a lot of blue sand everywhere, and a hill up ahead where the Doctor pointed to.

'The city is just over there.'

'How could I forget this?' Donna stared around. 'A new planet. A completely new world miles from Earth!

'A whole three hundred galaxies away, to be exact.'

'Yeah. And it's _beautiful!'_ Donna said, smiling down at Chloe – who nodded back. 'Where are we?'

'Well, judging by the sand and sun - I'd say planet...'

They'd reached the top of the hill, with the Doctor helping keep Chloe from falling over in the sand. They overlooked a vast land of blue rocks, and big round things filled with black eggs. Chloe's eyes were wide at the sight of the giant birds, huddled next to every nest, who all turned to stare at them with angry beaked faces.

'Uh...' the Doctor took a step back, clutching tighter to Chloe's hand. 'Wrong spot. This is the nesting ground. Okay, _run!'_

Chloe yelped when she was roughly pulled away from the hill. The alien birds gave scary screeches, and stood to stretch their massive black wings. Chloe ran with the grown-ups, struggling with aching feet to keep up with them. Her heart was jumping in her chest, and her breaths gasping, as they burst inside the TARDIS.

The Doctor let go of her hand to shut the doors, and backed against it with a whoop of relief.

'Running shoes!' the Doctor said. 'Very useful!'

'You said it was _safe!'_ Donna scolded. 'What were those things?'

'Perrik birds. Very territorial.' He winced at a distant screech outside. 'Okay!'

Chloe watched him run back to the console, madly pushing buttons and turning things. Donna's hand fell on her shoulder, prompting Chloe to look up at her.

'You alright?'

'Yeah. I'm okay,' Chloe gulped, and hurried to buckle herself in the chair again. The big angry birds were scary, but she'd only had a moment to notice that before the Doctor had dragged her back to the ship.

Now she knew why she needed shoes specially made for running.

'Okay, let's try again!'

Upon landing, Donna and Chloe remained back while the Doctor peered out the doors warily. He stepped outside while they waited quietly by the console for his return. He burst back in with a wide smile and offered a hand for Chloe.

She ran over to hold it, and counted to five before approaching the doors again.

'Same planet,' the Doctor said, standing between them as they admired the busy activity all around. 'Less territorial.'

Chloe's eyes were wide - time travel was nothing compared to visiting a different planet. The buildings were all sparkly silver with cones on the top, and had lots of triangle windows everywhere. She jumped back when an alien walked by her, alarmed by how blue it was. All the aliens were blue, like the sand at their feet, and had more of things than they did – like three eyes, and six fingers without any thumbs. They walked on duck-like feet, and spoke in words that sounded almost musical. It didn't make any sense to Chloe, until another alien walked by and suddenly she could understand it.

'Planet Peryle,' the Doctor said happily. 'Home of the karigers and perrik birds, separately.'

Donna was asking a lot of questions, but Chloe could only stare at the sight of the blue aliens. They were much bigger than her, though the grown-ups could meet them in the eyes. The Doctor waved at one, and it waved back with a funny sort of smile that revealed fangs instead of normal teeth.

She gave the Doctor's hand a squeeze, and inched closer to his side.

'The karigers are friendly,' he assured her.

'They're blue.'

Chloe's words made him look at her in a strange way. She saw a sad smile cross over his face, before the Doctor turned away. Donna was watching him too, but kept moving around to admire the cone-topped silver buildings.

'Yeah,' he nodded.

Chloe watched a small shadow cross over the blue sand beneath her rainbow shoes, and shifted from its path. She held to the Doctor's hand, not even considering letting go as he'd told her not to, and followed the grown-ups through the street. There were aliens and silver shops everywhere, but Chloe was more interested in the green sky and blue ground. It made her think of a beach so far away – the last place she'd been hugged by her mother.

'Here we are.'

The Doctor used their held hands to direct Chloe into a silver chair that felt a bit rubbery. He slowly let her go, and sank into the seat across from her to Donna's left.

'Is there a menu?' Donna asked. The Doctor handed her a little book, as a blue alien dressed in a silver apron stood to the side. 'What's all this?'

'Uh...'

Chloe let the grown-ups decide what to order, and kept twisting in her seat to look at everything. There was a stall nearby with lots of jewellery outside, and went inwards to a door of a shop. The blue alien with a cone hat standing just inside the stall was watching her, as a shadow passed over the stall roof.

Smelling something weird, Chloe startled when a plate of coloured things was placed in front of her. The blue alien with the silver apron offered a smile while another delivered bigger plates to the grown-ups.

Chloe frowned at the things on her plate, and poked a bright pink cube with her fork.

'Jah jubes,' the Doctor told her. 'The pink is from their Jahra fruit. Very popular in these parts. It should be sweet.'

Chloe poked the pink cube again, not trusting it. There was a long purple thing, a spotty red triangle, some brown shredded cheese-like stuff, and a lump of green goo she didn't dare touch. She watched Donna spooning orange clumps into her mouth, stating how nice it was. The Doctor sipped from a large glass of blue-ish milk-like stuff, his eyes wide with delight.

Chloe looked back at her food and wanted to shove it away.

'It's _alien_ food,' she grumbled. 'For aliens.'

'We are aliens,' the Doctor reminded her. 'It's okay – I checked. This is all suitable for human consumption – nothing poisonous or hallucinogenic. Very tasty. Trying new things is all part of the adventure.'

If the alien food was part of having an adventure, Chloe decided she should at least taste some of it. Not the green goo, but maybe the pink cubes or red spotty triangles. The last adventure was very scary, so trying new food couldn't be too bad. She poked her fork deeper into a pink cube, and lifted it to her nose. It smelled sweet, but not like anything she'd smelled before.

Slowly, with the grown-ups watching her encouragingly, Chloe nibbled on a corner of the cube.

'See?' the Doctor grinned when she gasped. 'Yum!'

Chloe ate the whole pink cube - it tasted a bit like soda candy and apples. She had three more, then moved on to the red spotty triangles.

'Kapp berries,' was the name the Doctor provided her with.

Chloe managed to fit a whole one in her mouth, which remained there for no more than three seconds before it was spat out onto the ground to her right - with such a sound of disgust the nearby aliens turned to stare.

'Yuck!' Chloe cringed.

'Ah, okay.' The Doctor frowned. 'Here, wash it down with shaka.'

He passed his large glass of blue milk to her. Chloe pushed it back in refusal. She shoved her plate away as well, and glared at the other kapp berry sitting on it.

The Doctor and Donna made many attempts to get her to taste some of the other food on her plate, but the kapp berry was so gross Chloe didn't dare touch anything else. She only unfolded her arms on the table when a blue alien brought over a bowl of jah jubes for her with a kind smile. Relieved to see more pink cubes, Chloe happily ate them without bothering to use a fork. Donna made a mention or two about manners, while the Doctor simply drank the last of his blue milk.

'Chloe,' Donna pushed her own plate aside to lean closer. 'I bet your mum and dad would've liked to see this place, yeah? Did they like to travel too?'

'Yes,' Chloe answered.

'What were they like?'

Chloe looked from Donna's curious face to the Doctor's sad one, and lowered her gaze to the bowl of pink cubes she continued to eat. She closed her eyes for a moment, and pictured her parents in her mind.

Her mum and dad – what were they like?

'Dad's tall, and wears those.' Chloe pointed to the bow around the Doctor's neck.

'Bow ties?' he delighted. 'See? They really are cool, Donna.'

'Yeah, yeah.' She rolled her eyes at him, then smiled at Chloe. 'What else?'

Chloe shrugged, popping another cube into her mouth. She didn't know that much about her dad, and was always reminded by her uncle how her mum cared about her more. Her aunt agreed – it was one of the few things left in the world that both her aunt and uncle could agree with.

'Mum has light hair,' Chloe shared, picturing the sunny day on the beach years ago. 'She's always smiling.'

There were tears in her eyes, which Chloe quickly brushed away with the sleeve of her jumper. She didn't know why she felt like crying – her parents had forgotten her, and left to never come back. It was a long time ago, but it reminded her how easy it must be for others to forget her if her own parents had.

The grown-ups didn't ask more questions, and Chloe returned to her pink cubes. They were so yummy, but she was getting full pretty quick. She looked around, eyes searching for something other than blue aliens and weird buildings.

'What's that?' Chloe pointed to the stall where the cone-hat alien had watched her from, though was gone now.

'Oh!' the Doctor grinned at it, turning to see. 'Brilliant. A traveller's stall – lots of nice, shiny things for visitors to buy.' His head moved to follow the small shadow crossing over the blue sand.

'And that?' Donna pointed to the shadow.

'Uh...Trouble.'

'Though so. Come on, Chloe.' Donna rose from her seat and held out a hand. 'Let's go check out the stall.'

Chloe knew trouble was a bad thing, but they looked so calm. She hopped off her seat and walked around the table, accepting to hold Donna's hand while the Doctor ran out of the sheltered seating area to stare up at the sky. Stepping into the green sunlight with Donna, Chloe tilted her head back as well and saw a bird flying high overhead.

That didn't seem weird or bad - until she remembered this planet had _very_ scary birds.

'But why?' the Doctor asked, looking straight up with hands cupped around his eyes to counter the sunlight. 'This isn't their territory. They _never_ come here! The only thing the perrik birds care about are their eggs and young.'

Chloe was tugged away by Donna, who distracted her with all the glittery chains with shiny gems hanging from little hooks and rods under the tent-like roof of the stall.

The Doctor swirled around a lot behind them, and talked to anyone who passed by in the street.

'See anything you like?' Donna asked somewhere beside her.

'I don't have any money.'

'Hold on. Stay here; don't move.' She let go of Chloe's hand, and grabbed the Doctor's arm to turn him to face her.

'Don't let go of her hand!' he shrieked at Donna.

'Hello.'

Chloe turned away from the bickering grown-ups to see a blue alien standing in front of her. He (she thinks it's a boy) was the one who watched her before, and was a lot taller than she'd thought. Actually, he was a lot taller than a lot of the aliens, Chloe noticed. His skin wasn't the same blue either, and his smile a bit crooked.

'Hi,' she mumbled, knowing it was rude not to say anything if someone greeted her nicely.

Chloe, not wanting to look at him, admired the things deeper into the stall. Most were covered in the darkness of the enclosed shadowy area, but one spot in the corner was completely invisible. Surrounded by various technology pieces and chunks of weird metal squares, was something round and very big - that was all she could make sense of it and she felt a shiver without coldness.

'Chloe!' the Doctor called to her.

'Coming!' she replied, and looked up at the alien again.

The smile was gone, and the angry red of its eyes made her take a step back. The other blue aliens only had blue eyes, not red. Scared, she turned and ran back to the Doctor. Chloe pressed her face to his side and clung to him without caring about the questions the grown-ups fired at her.

A lizard woman who was the Doctor's friend wasn't a monster, but other lizard people might be. So surely blue aliens that weren't monsters also meant not all of them were okay either.

Maybe that one in the shop was not a nice alien at all.

A screech erupted from above, as a bigger shadow crossed over the street. The blue aliens were startled and ran about looking confused, while the Doctor and Donna just stood there watching the perrik bird fly lower. The Doctor talked fast, and only about things that didn't make sense. The birds weren't supposed to be there – they never come to the city as that's where the blue aliens live. That's what was always agreed.

'You said the only thing they care about is their eggs and young,' Donna mentioned.

Chloe slowly unburied her face from the Doctor's side. His hands rested protectively on her shoulders, giving her the strength to look back at the stall.

'Yes, but there's no way there would be one here. The karigers wouldn't-'

'Doctor?' Chloe tugged his sleeve.

'Hang on, Chloe,' he said. 'We're trying to stop a potential perrik flock from attacking an entire city of innocent people. Whatever frightened you in that shop will be taken care of right after, I promise.'

'It was black,' she tried again.

'What was black, Sweetheart?' Donna crouched in front of her.

'The round thing. The bad alien in the shop had a black round thing,' she explained, shifting her feet anxiously. She didn't like explaining things, but Chloe knew what it might be now. 'Like those eggs from the hill.'

'Bad alien?' the Doctor appeared in her view. 'Why bad? What was bad about it?'

Chloe shrugged, not liking all the urgent attention she was under. She used hand gestures instead – trying to show it was really tall and had an angry face. The Doctor responded by scanning the air with his sonic screwdriver, and giving her a _very_ odd look.

'Perception filters,' he said. 'How'd you...? Never mind that!' He ran to the shop and vanished within.

Donna held Chloe's hand and waited in the street with her, both keeping an eye on the bird above getting closer and louder.

Chloe quickly learned that adventures always meant things would get very loud and fast. The bad alien was a trick, and trying to sell things he wasn't allowed to. He wasn't really blue – the Doctor zapped him or whatever with the sonic screwdriver, and the bad alien turned purple with little horns on his head. He had scary red eyes and used words too big for Chloe to understand.

Things got very messy after that, as the scary bird got too close to the buildings. Chloe wasn't sure what happened exactly, but stalls were thrown around and aliens screamed in high-pitched scratchy voice. A perrik bird up close was absolutely massive – like a dinosaur! It barely fit in the street, and the screech made Chloe shake so much she couldn't move to run when Donna tried to pull her away. The bird looked right at her with black eyes. Chloe didn't think she'd ever been so scared in her life – tears blurred in her eyes, but she couldn't scream or move.

It was going to eat her!

Strong arms curled around her middle and scooped her out of the bird's attacking beak. She yelped and felt the warmth of the Doctor. She looked over her shoulder to see he was holding her against his chest and not letting go. Donna came into sight, and the Doctor had her bossily direct some of the blue aliens nearby. Chloe put her hands over the Doctor's arm, which remained around her middle, as he held her close. She felt safe from being hurt, but not enough from the chance of being eaten.

Chloe watched the aliens carefully roll a big, black egg from the ruins of the stall, and realised what was going on.

'There!' the Doctor pointed to the egg, which was almost bigger than Donna and the blue aliens. 'It was stolen by a trickster, but it's okay. It's unharmed. Please, have mercy - these people have nothing to do with it being taken or kept hidden!'

The bird screeched again, and Chloe turned in the Doctor's grip to hide her face against his shirt. She whimpered, picturing the beast swooping down to eat her in one big gulp, and tried to trust the Doctor to save her.

'I understand you're angry. You're a parent, it's only natural. You have every right to be, but-' the Doctor seemed to understand the terribly loud screeching, though he sounded really confused when the bird replied.

'What – no, she's not my...'

Chloe muffled the talking by covering her ears with her hands, wanting the screeching giant bird to go away. It didn't work very well, and her hands were soon removed by the Doctor when he crouched in front of her.

'Chloe, are you alright?' he looked straight at her, with that mum and dad look.

She shook her head, feeling tears on her cheeks, and accepted the hug he pulled her into. It felt nice, to be hugged like that – so warm and safe. When he let go, Chloe could see the bird grab the egg in its claws and lift off to fly away. The street was a mess, but no one looked too hurt. She wasn't sure where the bad alien had gone, and didn't care as long as the scary bird stayed away.

'Back to the TARDIS,' the Doctor sounded angry. 'Now.' He took hold of her hand, and gave Donna a stern look, then led them back down the street to the blue box sitting untouched by the chaos around it.

* * *

The Doctor had visited Planet Peryle many times across various regenerations, and it had never been more than a mostly simple trip. Then he brought along a child companion and there was nothing simple about that visit at all. An alien fraud stealing a perrik bird egg, with the intent to sell to off-worldly black market dealers, had quickly escalated into a diplomatic disaster that could have wiped out most non-perrik life on the whole planet.

The perrik birds, as a species, were highly telepathic towards their own kind – communicating with their sleeping young for three years before the infant hatches. Hundreds of millions of years ago the species used to help any alien young find their parents, if lost, during the times before the birds had to relocate back to their home world Planet Peryle. The Doctor supposed that's why the parent perrik bird raiding the street was quicker to notice Chloe out of the frenzied crowd.

That didn't excuse the fact it had tried to eat her.

He didn't know much about the history, but he knew taking an egg off the planet would have been a grave move. The whole flock would have torn the world apart looking for it, mentally searching for the young one who would die before hatching as a result of being cut off from its parent's telepathic nurturing. To the intergalactic black market, the only valuable aspect to the situation was the egg shell – a rarity that fetched an enormous payout.

All those facts had helped rectify the situation, sure, but even when safely back inside the console room the Doctor felt unsatisfied with the resolve.

Chloe was sitting on her favourite chair, looking down at the rainbow shoes she swung back and forth in the air – she wasn't tall enough for her feet to touch the floor yet. Donna leaned against the nearby railing, watching him with a look that made him fidget. She seemed smug and he didn't like it.

He'd tried to suggest taking them back home only moments after they'd returned to the TARDIS. It hadn't gone well; Donna started yelling and Chloe was on the verge of tears, but still he ranted.

The Doctor really tried to remind them how dangerous it all was – a simple planet like Peryle had led Chloe to almost be eaten by a perrik bird, which had never ever ventured into the streets before. He'd checked with a very old and wise kariger, who confirmed such a chaotic incident hadn't happened before since the two territories were negotiated so long ago.

He'd exhausted his breath - with Chloe's pleading to stay wearing down his determination, and Donna's rationalising objections deafening his ears. He'd been quiet since, and looking over at Donna now the Doctor wasn't about to give up. Growling angrily, he stormed off to the arch and bypassed the kitchen in a blur. Why won't they listen to him?

He must have a face that no one listens to – _again._

Reaching his private study, the Doctor rummaged through drawers in search of the list. That all-important list detailing exactly why a child could never ever be his companion on board the TARDIS.

'Where is it?' he grumbled, tossing various objects aside. Touching a velvet box small enough to fit on his palm, the Doctor halted and swallowed the pain of the memories that relentlessly refused to be forgotten.

No, he'd regenerated – he'd moved on. He had to.

With a huff, he turned and headed further into the TARDIS, ignoring Donna calling him from somewhere behind him.

The next room was lit with flaming torches along the walls and had steamy vents at the floor. He never had a name for this room, and it moved around all over the place between every trip he took. It wasn't even very warm in there, and looked more like a stone cave than an actual room. Spotting the drawers across the room, passing a few armchairs and an empty fish bowl, the Doctor resumed his search for the list.

It wasn't there either!

He tried all his pockets next, until he finally located a crumbled piece of paper he hadn't seen in quite some time. And there they were; the rules for why a child companion was a bad idea – one reason he'd learned and noted for every regeneration as the Doctor.

 _**1**. A child requires education and guidance. This must be a constant and monitored factor, handled with great care and accuracy. Earth school is the preferable option, but greatly hinders the lifestyle of travelling – especially with the knackered TARDIS navigation system._

 _**2.** There are many adaptations necessary when a child is on board. Internal changes may reach beyond the child's choice, in inability to fully comprehend these alterations to their own self. This robs them of consent and awareness of the impact Time and Space has on them._

 _**3.** A child is much more vulnerable – lessened physical self-protection, and incompletely matured in emotional management. The risks of harm are significantly outrageous._

 _ **4.** It is easy to forget._

 _**5.** The background radiation from exposure to the Time Vortex will likely have substantial consequences on a young child's development. _

_**6.** They may come to fear you. The things you do, and choices you must make, cannot be so easily undone. A child should not have to endure the consequences of your burden._

 _**7.** They always wander off!_

 _**8.** Will you be enough? Can you truly undertake the tasks confronted with, in duty of care and companionship, that the ongoing presence of a child demands?_

 _**9.** The innocence of a child's perspective will become lost. The way a child views everything is unique and natural – life on board the TARDIS will tarnish the constant hope for it all to be okay. Children have an insatiable belief in fairytales. _

_**10.** Time travel has a greater price for children. If the family does not consent to the child travelling on the TARDIS, in full awareness of what that means, that child will continue to age beyond what is safe to return said child without causing an anomaly. The child would unfairly be giving up a home and life completely. Unless only a few trips are made, the choice to leave won't enable the child to slip back into their rightful time._

'There you are!' Donna's voice startled him.

The Doctor turned to see her approach, while Chloe wandered inside and dropped into an armchair. She looked a bit tired, but the Doctor made an effort to avoid looking at her. He didn't want them to leave, but it was safer. He'd lost too many others – and the list reminded the Doctor why a child companion was not okay. It was too damaging in all aspects. Though the ache in his own hearts alerted him of the eleventh reason he was yet to add to the list.

'Don't you understand, Donna?' he was frustrated in her arguing of the matter. 'I've lost too much! I can't...I just, _can't.'_

'I know,' her voice was softer as she came closer, stepping aside a steaming vent. She gave it a weird look, taking in the sight of the room for a moment, then met his eyes.

'Doctor, I _know._ Rose was trapped in another universe, twice. Martha left, and I forgot. I know we're not the only ones, but that's how life is. You could drop us home and we might get hit by a bus the next day. Life isn't meant to be painless, and it passes us by without warning, but the pain in here...'

She pressed her hands to his chest, where his hearts were, mirroring a time she'd done that in his previous regeneration.

'You have two hearts, Doctor. Twice the love, and twice the pain.' She said with a sympathetic smile. 'But being on your own, does it really hurt less? I don't think so.'

'I don't lose anyone when I travel alone.' He frowned.

'Yeah, you do,' Donna sighed. 'You lose yourself. You need someone, Doctor. I've always said that, and you know it's true.'

'How do you remember me, Donna?' he looked her face over carefully. 'It was killing you – that doesn't just disappear. And Chloe, she's a child. There's so many more things that are dangerous and wrong for a child. I've lost so much! I don't want to lose you two – I can't bear it.'

'We're staying.' Donna smiled at him, speaking with such simplicity he couldn't help smiling.

There was enormous trust and understanding in her eyes, with gentle certainty in her voice. He understood what she was trying to tell him. The dread of pain and fear of loss was not a reason for them to leave, but rather exactly why he needed them to stay. They reminded him of all the things about their fleeting lives that made him love humans. Such short and fragile lifespans, yet with a constantly unending promise of hope and love.

He realised he'd never have been able to make them leave forever - even if Donna hadn't talked him out of it until he felt too emotionally exhausted to fight back.

Chloe turned around to look at him, and the Doctor averted away.

He walked to the opposite wall where the desk was, and took a pen from one of his many bigger-on-the-inside pockets. He scribbled down the eleventh reason child companions were a bad idea, then tucked the list away in the drawer where he intended to leave it. He wrapped Donna into a hug, then moved to crouch in front of the armchair to assure Chloe she was absolutely welcome to stay.

Except the child was gone.

'Chloe?' a brief panic swelled within his chest.

They _always_ wandered off!

'She saw the closet through an open door on the way here,' Donna said, following him out of the room. 'She probably just wanted a closer look. She kept asking where all the clothes come from.'

Donna was right – they found Chloe two doors away, staring up at the never-ending spiral of stairs surrounded by immeasurable amounts of clothes.

The girl had always stuck close to them, but this time she ventured away to explore a box on the floor to her right. Chloe crouched in front of it, fiddling with someone inside, then hurried to a mirror. The Doctor and Donna smiled, as the little girl wrapped a purple cloth around her neck and tried to tie it with uncertain movements of her small hands.

'I wanna look like my dad,' Chloe said, as the Doctor turned her around by her shoulders so he could crouch in front of her.

He moved the cloth around his fingers with practised motions, and stepped back to let her admire the purple bow tie in the mirror. She beamed with so much pride it was impossible to think he'd even considered letting her go back to Victorian London. In all his secret honesty, the Doctor was certain he'd have sent Chloe to live with Donna instead.

No child deserved to be forgotten and alone.

They could have a fantastic life there, but even after Rose disputed all his attempts to do the same for her – the Doctor still couldn't believe he could personally be a part of what makes someone's life amazing. They travelled for Time and Space, merely accompanied by the madman and his box.

'Do you like it?' Chloe looked up at him with shining blue eyes seeking approval. Her wide smile was impossibly happy, and the Doctor could hear the TARDIS hum in appreciation of his decision leave the list buried in the drawer of the flaming vent-y room.

'Oh yes.' He grinned back. 'Very cool!'

'Bow ties _are_ cool,' Chloe told Donna cheekily, who laughed.

The Doctor took a few steps back, watching his new and returned companions laughing together and examining racks upon racks of clothes. He saw some newer, shorter racks to his far right loaded with children clothes that would fit Chloe nicely, and sighed. He supposed, from the moment Chloe had gained access to his TARDIS and presented him with the mystery entwining her entire existence, that there'd been no real choice on his behalf for her to stay.

Like all his more recent companions - how could he have had any hope of resisting such a temptation?

 _**11.** You will become too attached, and be forced to accept a role in the child's life that will make the eventual goodbye too painful to bear._

* * *

 _ **Important:** If you would like to see more of Wilfred, let me know and I will gladly oblige. The reunion between the Doctor and Wilfred isn't included in this chapter for plot reasons, but will be shown in entirety later on. A video is being made for this story, which I will give links and such to in my profile once it's released. Kudos to anyone who knows why Chloe saying the aliens were blue was significant to the Doctor - it means you didn't skip Nine. _

_Feedback is, as always, greatly appreciated + always helpful to a writer's motivation and progress. It's like giving the Doctor a fez filled with bananas!_


	5. Don't Feed the Moargs

_As always, thank you SO much to all of you wonderful people who are still reading - and who review, favourite or follow this story! Also a shout-out to **Kiorru-dono** , whose review helped me with a part of this chapter I'd almost forgotten to include now rather than later. Thanks!_

* * *

 **~ Don't Feed the Moargs ~**

Sooner or later, every companion learned that the ideal of waking to the gentle humming of a calmly quiet TARDIS was quite unrealistic and never to be expected. But Donna was one of the very few who could leave her room and hear the sound of joyful enlightenment echoing through the corridors.

The sound came from the kitchen, which was also the source of the deliciously sweet scent of breakfast drifting throughout the ship.

'And – flip!' Chloe commanded.

The girl stood on a chair, enabling her to overlook the frying pan on the stove. Her ginger hair was tied back into a ponytail to keep it out of her face, and the girl wore the pinkest apron ever seen.

'Ah ha!' the Doctor declared, flicking his wrist to overturn the pancake in mid-air.

The pair watched it fall perfectly aligned back into the frying pan, and burst into giggles. The Doctor wore a pink apron as well, though not nearly as blindingly so as Chloe's. He'd forgone his tweed jacket, probably to keep it from catching on fire.

That has been known to happen.

'Morning,' Donna greeted them. 'Having pancakes, are we?'

'Yup!' Chloe grinned, scrunching her face while trying to remember exactly what type they were. 'Banana pancakes with chocolate chips and blueberry syrup.'

'Sounds great.' Donna sat in a chair by the table. 'Though, my dentist mightn't agree.'

'They're actually quite nutritious,' the Doctor said happily, pointing at her with his spatula. 'Hello.'

'Oh, yeah – hello, Donna!' Chloe said, then gasped. 'Doctor, flip!'

'Ha!' he flipped and transferred it onto a plate in the same motion.

The eight-year-old cheered dutifully at his display of surprisingly skilful precision.

'That's the last one. How many do we have, Assistant Chef?'

'One...Two...' Chloe carefully counted the nicely stacked pancakes.

Donna stared at the plate and wondered how three people could possibly eat so many in a single meal.

'Seventeen!'

'I'll just have two, thanks,' Donna said.

The trio settled at the table together; the image of a little family sharing a delicious breakfast before a surely exciting trip to wherever the Doctor or TARDIS decided they'd be visiting next.

Chloe swung her legs back and forth under the table, chewing the yummiest breakfast she'd ever had. She giggled at the Doctor defending himself against Donna teasing his choice of apron, and wondered if every morning on the TARDIS could be this perfect. She'd never helped cook anything before either. It turned out to be a lot of fun, even when it made her super hungry to not be able to eat any of the pancakes until they were all finished.

'Where are we gonna go next?' Chloe asked when the grown-ups paused for breath.

'Somewhere awesome!' the Doctor raised his fork like a sword 'Big day out. Lots to see.'

'The usual, then?' Donna smirked.

'Where?' Chloe squirmed in excitement.

As long as there weren't any giant birds, yucky berries, fake blue aliens, or icy monsters.

'Jekopolis!' the Doctor's eyes lit up. 'Best outer-space zoo in the entire universe – so big it's on a whole moon! It even has a mega bouncy castle, excellent restaurants with superb service, and loads of animals all living healthy lives under the protection of The Conservation Zoo Project. The project was founded in the year 30, 010, after the Moargs nearly went extinct on Jupiter. On Jekopolis, visitors are encouraged for education and company.'

'Can we go now?' Chloe propped up on her knees. 'Please, Doctor?'

'Five minutes.' He stood. 'We can only visit Jekopolis in the winter, so you lot need something warmer.'

'Why can't we visit during the summer?' Donna frowned.

'Uh, no reason.' The Doctor shrugged, avoiding her eyes. 'Just...During winter the fire-breathing Draconian Iguanas go into hibernation.'

'But it's safe, right?' Donna wasn't convinced. 'They're in cages, aren't they?'

'Cages?' the Doctor gasped in horror. 'Why would they be in cages? That's a horrid suggestion! Shove a fire-breathing Draconian Iguana in a cage and we may as well be back in Pompeii on volcano day.'

'Well they're not just wandering around on their own, are they?' Donna growled.

Chloe sank back onto her seat to drink the rest of her apple juice, not liking the way the conversation was going.

'They're not, right? They're not just walking around? Are they?'

'No, no – of course not.' The Doctor shook his head. 'But cages? Honestly.'

'Well I don't know, do I?'

'Donna – console room in five minutes. Dress warmly,' the Doctor said. 'Chloe, I've got something to show you first. I think you'll like it.'

Chloe smiled and hurried after him, glancing back once to wonder if Donna had to clean up after breakfast or if the TARDIS could somehow do it on her own. She imagined Donna would be furious to be left with a mess – her aunt always was. Except, Donna didn't seem to mind at all so maybe the TARDIS would clean everything on its own.

Ever since she first saw it fall from the sky, Chloe loved the blue box spaceship very much.

It kept giving her nice clothes to wear, all ready at the end of her bed when she woke, and was so pretty wherever the corridors led them. Those changed around too, as Chloe had discovered when she'd woken in the semi-dark - scared giant birds could get into the ship and eat her while she was sleeping. The floor had been cold against her toes, so Chloe dressed in her jeans and yellow shirt before locating her running shoes; just in case.

Everything was a lot darker when she woke earlier than she was supposed to, but Chloe was used to that from her grandfather's house. She hadn't known where she was going, but the corridor of the ship changed when she'd stepped outside her bedroom. The console room had seemed like a good idea; Chloe could sit on the small steps by the controls bit and watch the door in case something got in. If the ship hadn't removed her usual path; instead of the big stairs that went down to the console room, she'd seen a corner. Warily turning around it, Chloe had found herself in some sort of library. It wasn't very big, but dark and scary until the Doctor came into view to give her that mum and dad look.

As Chloe followed the Doctor from the kitchen to her bedroom, where he'd said he had something to show her, she remembered how easily he'd made her fears go away.

That's how they'd ended up making pancakes – he'd known she had a bad dream before she'd even tried to find the words. He didn't call her mean names for it, like her aunt and uncle had. The Doctor just sat on a comfy sofa with her and listened carefully to why the bad dream had scared her so much. Then he took her hand in his and led her back to the console room, which was in the right place again. They sat with their legs dangling outside the open door of the box for a while, just watching the fish swim around near the bottom of the ocean he'd taken them to.

The shields really could protect them from anything getting in - even all the water of the deepest part of the ocean. Chloe understood that now.

'Here we are!' the Doctor exclaimed, startling Chloe.

'It's my bedroom.' She frowned, looking around then up at him. 'You wanted to show me my own room?'

'No,' he scoffed, and pointed to a corner.

A shiny new wardrobe, in a lovely shade of violet, sat against the furtherest wall.

'That's new. Thought it was time you had a proper one. Go on, have a look.'

He seemed as excited as she was.

Chloe ran over to it and pulled both the doors open, delighted by the rainbows of different coloured clothes perfectly her size. There were so many; more than she'd ever seen!

'For me?'

'Of course, why not for you?' He grinned. 'Pick a coat for the trip. A really, really warm one.'

Chloe struggled greatly with that task.

The clothes were endless – the more she moved aside, the more that appeared. Bigger on the inside, of course. She pulled white jacket off the hanger, brushing her hands over the furry hood then traced the golden stars printed everywhere. She turned and saw the Doctor bent by her beside table, very interested in the forget-me-not flower still sitting in its preserving jar.

'The Donna flower,' he whispered.

'Why does my flower have the same name as Donna?' Chloe wondered. She battled to get her arm inside the thick jacket, turning on the spot many times as she made her way over to him. 'And why'd it glow? My grandfather wrote on the lid to stop the glowing.'

'Why does it need to be stopped?' he asked. 'What's so bad about glowing?'

'People will see it when it glows.' Chloe squirmed against the jacket. 'Doctor? Help.'

He swerved to smile at her attempts to wrangle the coat, and held it up so Chloe could simply slip her arms through the snugly sleeves.

'You noticed it. You notice a lot of things.'

Chloe zipped up her jacket and tried to ignore the staring, as it was just something he did a lot. She was almost used to it now.

'Perception filters. Big blue box falling from the sky. Her super secret stash of banana chocolate on the top shelf of the TARDIS kitchen...' the Doctor's voice became quieter in a sad sort of way. 'I often wondered where she'd put it.'

'Who?'

'An old...friend, of mine. She had a flower name too.' He returned his attention to the jar. 'It glowed when we landed in 2011, on the day Donna remembered me. That cannot possibly be a coincidence; I wasn't even busy. Donna's on board now, but it's stopped. Has it ever glowed again, after your grandfather put a temporal stasis mark on it?'

'A what?' Chloe frowned, and shook her head. 'I don't think so. I never saw it glow again. But why does it have the same name as Donna?'

'Maybe it's not connected to Donna directly. Maybe having her name is just a lock on – a connection to whatever made her able to remember.'

Chloe sighed and knew she wasn't going to get an answer that made any sort of sense to her. The Doctor talked to himself, muttering lots of complicated words she didn't know the meaning of. He did that a lot, and she figured it was best to just wait until he was finished or ran out of words.

'Five minutes are up.' He suddenly smiled at her and offered his hand. 'Ready to see the coolest and biggest outer-space zoo in all the universe?'

'Yeah!'

* * *

He was so different.

Donna watched Chloe and the Doctor run down the stairs together and skid to a halt beside her in the console room. This new version of the Doctor, while still being completely him, was so different...But he was yet to see that she was different too.

The first thing she'd noticed, apart from him looking younger, was the way the Doctor was easier to distract. Chloe was the perfect distraction to everything he did, and Donna told herself maybe that's why she hadn't been caught in her lie.

It wasn't a big lie, not really, and she hardly felt very guilty about it. It was still lying, though. She had more answers to give than the ones she had, and at no point could she tell him that because he would never let it go until he knew what they were. He was still her best friend, and holding back those few little details felt terribly unfair, but Donna understood time a lot better now. Not the technical-babble stuff he rambled about (she'd only regained her memories; nothing else), just the simple fact that too much information at the wrong time can throw everything into chaos.

That's what she was told, and Donna had no reason to doubt it.

She followed the Doctor and Chloe to the doors of the TARDIS, wrapped warmly in the same jacket she'd worn to the Planet of the Ood so long ago. He pulled the doors open and made a grant gesture of excitement towards the zoo ahead. The TARDIS had landed perfectly inside an oval parking space large enough to fit the biggest car on Earth.

'Welcome, Chloe and Donna, to Jekopolis!' the Doctor declared, as they looked over his head to the huge and vibrant arch of the main entrance.

'Wow!' Chloe gasped.

Donna had tried the tourist thing before, prior to her first travels with the Doctor. She'd never held much interest in the typical tourist hotspots like zoos, museums, theatres, art galleries and so on. But an outer-space zoo that was so big it needed the space of an entire moon? Yeah, she was impressed.

As long as nothing tried to eat them...Again.

'The most important rule for this trip is that you do not, under any circumstances, feed the moargs,' the Doctor told them sternly, reaching to hold Chloe's hand. 'Never. Not once. Not even for a _second._ In fact, don't touch anything to do with them.'

'Morgues?' Donna frowned, certain she must have misheard him.

'No, moargs. Like a boar, except nothing like that at all.'

' _Thanks_ \- that helps.' Donna rolled her eyes sarcastically.

They headed through a surprisingly thin crowd of relatively humanoid aliens, Donna wondered why the place wasn't more popular - if the zoo was indeed as grand as the Doctor boasted it to be. It wasn't until they reached the entrance arch that she understood why the visitor count was relatively low. The chill seeping out of the zoo was the reason the Doctor insisted they wear warmer jackets. It wasn't freezing enough to need their hoods up, but it was cold.

 _Really_ cold.

A shorter alien stood at the middle of the arch, waving frog-like fingers at them in greeting. He was very skinny, light purple, and dressed in a yellow uniform with the name-tag "Tek" printed on the front pocket. He clutched to a reel of orange tickets, and looked a bit too nervous to be given the duty of managing the front gate.

'Hello!' the Doctor waved cheerfully.

'Greetings, and such. Welcome to Jekopolis. Your entrance requires payment of 300 Otto,' Tek said in a recited tone.

'Blimey, 300?' the Doctor shook his head, counting yellow notes with "25 Ot" printed on each. 'Used to be 100 Otto per class A person, and 125 per class C last time I was here.'

'You've been here before?' Donna asked.

With how much he knew about the place, she wasn't surprised he'd already been a visitor there at some point in time. She did wonder which companion might have accompanied him, or if it was one of the many side trips he'd taken with the grand-daughter he mentioned on various occasions.

'Yeah, of course,' the Doctor smiled with soft fondness.

Grand-daughter, then.

'Discount for families,' Tek added.

'Yeah – that's us.' Donna nodded.

The Doctor halted his counting.

'How much a discount?' he cast her a wary glance.

It was always a tough subject with him, but Donna was rarely one to pay full price for anything if she could bargain it to something cheaper. There was nothing overly wrong with paying full price, as she doubted he'd worked hard for the money and had probably just sonic'ed it from somewhere, but it was fun. She enjoyed shopping for the same reason, rather than the materialistic satisfaction of a new purchase.

'Youngest offspring, hatchling or larvae free,' Tek said. '95 Otto per parent and/or biological correspondent. Is this child your offspring, hatchling or larvae?'

He faced Donna, reptile-like eyes shifting from from her hair to Chloe's. They both had blue eyes as well. It was a natural assumption that they could be related, as much as strangers used to assume she and the Doctor were married. However, it wasn't something Donna felt right about claiming - not with the way Chloe clung to the Doctor's hand and leaned to his side. Or the way he tucked the girl in at night, and even considering the sight she'd seen in the kitchen earlier when they made pancakes together like it was the most ordinary thing there was.

No, shared looks don't always show the truth when it came to family.

'No, not mine.' Donna jabbed her thumb towards the Doctor. 'She's his daughter.'

'Oi!'

'Dad shock.' Donna winked to the alien, who clutched tighter to the ticket reel.

She kept up the act, but swallowed a tinge of guilt for her choice of words. Dad shock – that's the same phrase she'd used back with Jenny. At the time she hadn't been as informed, but now she knew otherwise and it felt like poking a bruise. She hoped the difference of regeneration would help smooth it over; she wasn't teasing him this time, merely trying to form a cover that made perfect sense to strangers.

'I do not have dad shock!'

'And who are you to him?' Tek asked.

'She's my...Not-wife,' the Doctor grumbled, waving a hand as if the right word floated in the air above him.

'That is not an acceptable classification of relation.'

'Sister.' Donna stepped forward, wondering how the Doctor travelled for such a long time and gotten away with so much. 'I'm his sister; aunt of the child.'

'That is an acceptable classification.' Tek nodded, slowly counting out three orange tickets. 'Total entrance payment for your family, or gene-pool group, is 190 Otto.'

'There you go.' Donna felt pleased. 'We'll take the discount!'

'I can answer for myself, thanks,' the Doctor muttered, handing over the money. He lightly tugged Chloe's hand and walked forward with wider strides as if mad at Donna.

Donna accepted their tickets and zoo brochure. She rolled her eyes at the sulking Time Lord, while Chloe turned to wave goodbye to Tek. The alien looked surprised by the gesture, and raised his frog-like hand to wave back. Donna smiled at the exchange; Chloe was such a sweet child. She mused on the title of aunt she'd opted for herself and found she rather liked the idea of it.

Apparently the subject of their cover was still on Chloe's mind too – the girl halted barely a few feet into the zoo and tugged on the Doctor's hand.

'Doctor?' Chloe bit her lip, and shuffled her rainbow shoes. 'Are you my new dad now? Donna told the alien I'm your daughter. Is that a lie?'

'Um...'

Donna pretended to flip through the brochure while the Doctor struggled to answer the girl. He crouched down to Chloe's level, and sighed.

'I'm not your dad, Chloe,' he finally said. 'It was a lie. I travel all over time and space – sometimes it's too dangerous or confusing to explain who I am or why I'm there. People assume things if I don't tell them anything. Sometimes, that's okay. Others can get us all in trouble.'

'I don't understand.' The girl frowned, looking down at her shoes and the silvery pavement.

'I can say Donna's my friend and we travel together, but you're a child. People might get very suspicious and think we tricked or stole you, and that won't end well for anyone,' the Doctor said. 'That's why we need to lie sometimes. Saying you're my daughter is the easiest lie of all. No one asks questions about that.'

'Why?' Chloe looked at him, sad blue eyes staring into his green ones. 'I look like Donna more. Why is a dad a better lie than a mum?'

Donna expected him to glare at her for making him stop to explain such an emotionally difficult concept, or ask her why she had transferred Chloe's responsibility to him in the eyes of others. She peered over the brochure, and noticed he hadn't even moved his gaze from the girl's face.

'Because I _am_ a dad, Chloe. Or I was, a very long time ago,' he whispered. 'And I hold you tight to keep you safe. With you, I look like a dad. People love to assume a scenario that makes the most sense to them.'

He straightened and redirected their attention to the zoo. Chloe still looked rather confused, but had gone quiet at the sadness in his tone.

'Now,' he beamed around at the stalls selling scarves, and crowds of scattered types of aliens. 'We're in the coolest outer-space zoo _in the universe_ , and we're just standing around having a _chat?_ Come on, you two – let's explore!'

'But it's so big!' Chloe gasped. 'Won't we get lost?'

'Lost?' the Doctor sniffed. 'I never get lost!'

'Don't worry, I've the map.' Donna assured Chloe.

The Doctor scoffed and shook his head, as if she'd taken a swing at his pride.

'Now remember, don't feed the moargs,' he repeated.

The Doctor reached to position Chloe's furry hood over her face when the chill decreased in temperature. Donna did the same and followed after them, keeping a finger on the 3D path mapped out on the brochure just in case. She trusted the Doctor with her life, but his navigational skills...Not so much.

'What are moargs?' Chloe tilted her head back to look at him. 'Are they big and scary? Do they breathe fire?'

'Yes. No!' He startled, correcting himself. 'No fire, not scary – but big. Think of a tiger, then forget it because moargs are bigger.'

'Bigger than an elephant?' Donna asked.

'Probably.'

The Doctor led them right, passing a thick post with complex arrow-shaped signs sticking out in every direction. Donna caught a handful of names, but none were familiar and took a little too long to translate for her to read them properly.

'I don't remember.'

'You don't _remember?'_ Donna doubted.

He glanced at Chloe too often to be telling the truth, as if he didn't want to scare her. His knowledge or experience of the moargs made most sense only to him, as if the name of the creatures alone was a reason to be afraid of them.

Donna and Chloe could only trust his word on that.

'Ooh, look!' The Doctor pointed to a large habitat of bushes and rocks.

A round creature with a lot of eyes sat on a rock, eating leaves from a silver bowl. It looked up at them when the Doctor pressed his palm to the simmering protective field, which had the resemblance of touching a glass window. Chloe raised her free hand to copy his action, cautiously testing the formally-invisible barrier.

Donna was just glad to see there was some sort of confinement or wall that kept the animals safe from visitors – and vice versa.

'Look at him!' the Doctor delighted. 'Hello.'

It growled, and the Doctor stepped back looking very offended. He adjusted his bow-tie, and watched Chloe's interaction instead. The girl waved to the round animal, who grunted at her and turned its back.

'Oi, don't swear!' the Doctor shook his head at the creature, using both hands to cover Chloe's ears. 'He's very rude – must be new.'

'What is it?' Donna tried to work out what it compared to that gave more detail than the round creature being a cross between a brown apple with legs and baboon face.

'Keech.'

The Doctor and Donna looked down at Chloe with surprise.

'How – how did you know that?' he stuttered. The Doctor removed his hands from her ears and reclaimed her left hand to hold it protectively.

Chloe pointed to a screen raised on a post in front of the barrier. It was closer to her height, and engraved with the creature's name. The Doctor poked the 3D digital model of the keech, and a scrollable list of information appeared. It stated planet of origin and remaining population count, as well as in-depth details of everything The Conservation Zoo Project knew about the keech from birth to death.

'Well,' he sniffed. 'That takes the fun out of it. Are they all boring like that?'

'I want to see more!' Chloe tugged at his hand, disrupting his balance. 'Come on, Doctor! Please can we look at more alien animals? Do they have unicorns? I had a jumper once with a unicorn on it. Are they real? Can we see one here? Does it breathe fire?'

'Kids!' Donna joked, shaking her head at his bewildered look as they followed the eager girl along.

'She was so shy two minutes ago,' the Doctor muttered. He kept a firm a grip on the girl's hand, as Chloe tried to pull him along faster than he was going.

'What did you expect?' Donna smiled. 'The biggest zoo in the universe – so cool it's on a whole moon? I hope your dad skills aren't too rusty, for when she's really hyped up and doesn't want to wait.'

He yelped, raising his empty hand that had been holding Chloe's a moment earlier. He fled into the small crowd, calling Chloe in a high-pitched tone, which Donna would find amusing if she wasn't conflicted about teasing him at all on the dad topic. He sulked and pretended to ignore her, but otherwise it didn't seem to bother him too much. Surely it wasn't an easy subject for him, even across regenerations?

She remembered how vulnerable he'd been with Jenny and, after what happened, kept his hurt below the surface in a rather practised manner.

Chloe wasn't the same as Jenny. Donna found it as easy to forget the truth, the same way strangers assumed the opposite: the little Irish-sounding girl with ginger hair and blue eyes wasn't his daughter, despite how effortlessly he behaved like a dad to her. Donna couldn't help wishing it was true. Chloe deserved a parent who loved and protected her. Ever since meeting Jenny, Donna believed the Doctor needed someone like them. He needed family because she was tired of seeing him so sad. He'd lost so much – why couldn't the universe even things out by letting him gain as well?

After everything he'd done, all those worlds he'd saved, hadn't he earned it?

'She found the moargs,' the Doctor huffed when Donna caught up to them at a crossroad.

A black elephant-like creature made scuffling sounds as it moved around at one area, while two bright green birds squawked at each other across the opposite road.

Ahead, Chloe sat cross-legged in front of a grassy habitat. The dark red moarg inside was the size of a hippo, and physically resembled a relatively even cross between a lion and monkey. Its pale eyes stared at the girl watching it; neither moved nor interacted.

The Doctor leaned against a lamp-post nearby, and refused to look away from the pair.

'That's a moarg?' Donna didn't think it looked nearly as dangerous as the many-fanged growling thing she'd passed on the way there. 'Why's it bad to feed it?'

'Pray you never find out,' the Doctor said gravely. 'Chloe, not to close!' He warned when the girl shifted.

Donna walked over to the habitat, unnerved by the invisibility of the barrier but didn't want to touch it. She trusted the Doctor had reasons to warn them away from the creature.

Looking at the 3D model, she reached to it as he'd done previously for the Keech. The image shifted and information appeared, but the details were very limited. Apparently the moargs somehow ended up on Jupiter and nearly went extinct there, but were originally from a different galaxy. Any attempt to return them to their home planet had resulted in aggression and violence from the creatures they tried to return as soon as they neared the planet's atmosphere. A scan of life revealed the planet to be empty. Being so few in number, the Conservation Zoo Project brought them to Jekopolis. There are only twelve left in known existence, and each one in the zoo resided in a separate habitat.

That was all the information given, though at the bottom it stated in bold letters that the zoo disputes any and all responsibility if a visitor chooses to feed them.

'What do they eat?' Chloe looked up at her. 'They don't have bowls.'

Donna noticed that too. The other animals had been fed recently in silver bowls, but not the moargs. She glanced at the Doctor when he joined her side, but his face was serious as he watched the creature still eyeing Chloe.

Donna didn't repeat the girl's question.

'Don't you want to go have a look at the other animals?' He glanced down at the child, who shook her head. 'There's rainbow fish the size of houses in the aquarium. That's interesting, eh?'

'Not yet,' Chloe said. 'I think the moarg likes me.'

'How do you know that?' Donna wondered.

'Doesn't matter,' the Doctor dismissed, bending to lift Chloe under her arms and right into standing position.

When she continued to watch at the moarg, he swerved her around to face him.

'No, I want stay here!' Chloe squirmed in annoyance.

'And that's enough staring.'

He glanced over her shoulder at the moarg. It just sat there, monkey tail flicking with interest, and watched the girl.

'He's interested in you. Too interested; I don't like it,' the Doctor insisted. 'Come on, let's go look at something less telepathic and hungry.'

 _'Oh.'_

Donna glanced at the pale eyes of the creature, and realised what Chloe didn't. It was telepathic and hungry, but had no bowl for food. She'd been on enough adventures with the Doctor to figure out what that could mean.

'But it likes me!' Chloe whined, as the Doctor steered her away by hand.

'Yes, and an owl likes a mouse.'

'Don't you want to see the rainbow fish, Chloe?' Donna tried to help.

'I s'pose.' Chloe sighed. 'Are they really as big as a house?'

Donna was relieved, as the Doctor babbled about the giant fish and led them to the underground aquarium. It was a massive cavern with sparkling water on each side – mostly blue, but sometimes pink or green. With the barriers being invisible until touched, it was strange to see the water just stop instead of flooding into the wide tunnel scarcely filled with visitors.

Even after all this time, Donna hadn't gotten used to how boring and ordinary her life on Earth truly was compared to travelling with the Doctor. Something as simple as a zoo of endangered species was so beautiful and amazing, that nothing Donna had ever known could compare to the adventure of every place the TARDIS took them.

How could she have forgotten even a single moment?

Chloe squealed in terror and jumped behind the Doctor when a relatively Earth-like shark swam towards them then turned. Donna quickly stepped back as well, given the monstrous size of it.

'Megalodon.' The Doctor nodded, as if completely unimpressed by it, and draped an arm around Chloe's shoulders. 'You're safe, I promise.' He touched the barrier briefly, letting the shimmer to prove his words.

'That thing is _terrifying,'_ Donna muttered, shuddering. She turned away to admire the glowing coral-backed seahorses at the opposite wall of the tunnel.

Chloe hurried to join her.

~ xx ~

The aquarium felt endless after a while. The tunnel went onwards, and Donna soon tired of all the massive fish. Chloe's tiredness came in a more physical form; the more they walked, the slower the girl's paces became. Even when they noticed her lagging behind, the girl never complained.

Donna thought Chloe was exceptionally well-behaved, but the sadness in the Doctor's eyes showed maybe the reason for it wasn't something to admire.

'C'mere, you.' The Doctor crouched with his back to Chloe. 'Ever had a piggyback before?'

'No.' Chloe walked closer, unsure what to do.

'Hop on,' Donna encouraged.

Chloe hesitated, then climbed onto the Doctor's back with their help. He stood, one arm behind to support her, and used his other to point at the dim light ahead.

Donna was relieved to see the tunnel had an end, but almost walked into one of the purple staff aliens in the hurry to leave it. He gave a startled screech, and his skin flashed pale pink before returning to its natural shade. He bowed and wheezed for breath while she hurried to apologise.

'Oh, sorry!' she said. 'Tek? You're the one from the gate.' Donna noticed his nametag.

'I'm the ikky carer.' He pointed to a nearby habitat that mostly resembled lumps of yellow mashed potatoes. Tek had a bucket filled with worms, all which had a head on each end.

Donna didn't dare ask how the anatomy of that worked, confident she wouldn't like the answer.

'Ooh, you're a carer!' the Doctor grinned.

Chloe peered curiously over his shoulder at the bucket.

'That's brilliant.'

'What's an icky?' the girl asked, trying to catch sight of a creature in the yellow lumps of the habitat.

'On Earth, you lot would compare it to a mole,' the Doctor said, walking over to have a look as well. 'I've never seen one up close. They're famously shy.'

Tek carried the bucket to the habitat and walked through the barrier without any resistence. He overturned the worms into a silver bowl, and blew on a golden whistle around his neck that Donna hadn't noticed earlier. Three raccoon-sized moles ran out of the lumps like hyper dogs, and pounced at the worms.

Tek sat with them, scooping some worms in offering.

'What's a carer?' Donna asked the Doctor. The name was rather self-explanatory, but there was obviously a strong bond between Tek and the creatures that seemed more than just him being the feeder.

'A carer is assigned to each species in the zoo,' the Doctor said, shifting Chloe's weight on his back. 'It's for life. They bond with each alpha animal once it arrives, then the rest if there are any. These lot, the Ikkdons, were probably newborn cubs when they arrived and Tek was assigned to care for them. Food, shelter, company – the carer takes care of them for their entire lives. It's a sacred task, to learn and understand everything about that species.'

Tek stepped through the barrier and offered a worm to Chloe, who nearly fell backwards off the Doctor's back in effort to not touch it. The Doctor had to grab hold of a post with his free hand to keep them both upright.

'Yuck,' the girl grimaced.

Tek, unaffected by the refusal, ate the worm for himself. Everyone pulled a face, though the Doctor tried to be polite about it.

'They eat the same things too?' Donna guessed.

'Yeah,' the Doctor shuddered. 'I guess so.'

'What do moargs eat?' Chloe asked again.

'Ooh, a cyrodeer!' the Doctor hurried over to a nearby habitat containing a small herd of scaly deer eating from berry bushes. 'Look at that! Never seen one when it wasn't chasing me before. Nasty antlers they've got - you don't want one of those being rammed into your back, that's for sure. Very unpleasant.'

Chloe sighed and rested her chin on the Doctor's shoulder. Donna wondered how the girl even stayed on his back – he only used one arm to support her, and moved around a lot in his excitement. Chloe didn't even hold on, just loosely hung her arms over his shoulders. The girl yawned and turned her head to press her cheek to the Doctor, looking at the cyrodeer with interest.

Donna smiled at the sight, and knew it wouldn't be long before the excitement of the day caught up to the young girl. Each moment like that made the day on Jekopolis, despite the Doctor's insisting Chloe was nothing more than a companion who happened to be a child, seem that much more of an actual family outing.

* * *

'Well how was I supposed to know they had a hive memory?' the Doctor ranted, pacing inside the now-empty habitat of over-run berry bushes and dusty ground. 'Or that the cyrodeer would recognise me after two hundred years?'

'You said nothing could get through those barriers!' Donna shouted back.

'Almost nothing!' the Doctor returned, while Chloe stood anxiously beside Tek from a safe enough distance of the habitat. 'I really need to remember the "almost" in there. This shouldn't be possible!'

'Could this happen to all the barriers?' Donna worried.

Chloe whimpered at the thought, thinking of all the giant and scary things they'd seen throughout the day – most with very big mouths lined with sharp teeth.

Which one of them could breathe fire?

'No. No, absolutely not!' the Doctor halted. He looked around at the nearby habitats with wide eyes, and his voice dropped to a near-whisper. _'Almost_ absolutely not.'

'Can they break too?' Chloe asked Tek quietly. She looked up at the alien; not by much as he wasn't too taller than her but probably not more than Strax.

'I'm new,' Tek said, unhelpfully.

 _'The others will not hunt you.'_

Chloe gasped when she heard a voice, or thought she heard it. Turning around, clutching to the squishy rainbow fish toy the Doctor bought her earlier, Chloe didn't know who could have spoken.

 _'Over here.'_

'Your dad very specifically stated that you are not to wander off,' Tek said hurriedly, walking to keep up with Chloe.

She headed onto a crossroad around the corner from the aquarium tunnel entrance and cyrodeer habitat.

Dad.

Chloe halted at the word, looking at Tek. He moved his frog-like fingers anxiously, but didn't stop her from going.

 _'Come to me, youngling.'_

The voice pulled at her somehow.

She didn't think Tek could hear it, and Chloe wanted to know why. She turned on the spot, eyes scanning each habitat – mostly filled with forests and rocks, until she saw something familiar. A moarg, much bigger than the other one she'd seen earlier, sat at the edge of its grassy habitat.

'Don't speak to it,' Tek said nervously, hopping from side to side, trying to look anywhere except at the moarg.

'Hello.' Chloe waved, reaching the edge of the habitat.

' _Hello, youngling.'_

'Oh, she spoke to it,' Tek gasped. 'Not good. Don't go closer, child.'

 _'What are you? Where are you from?'_

'I dunno. Earth is my planet,' Chloe answered, remaining firmly back.

The other one was cool when it just sat and stared, but this one talked to her in a really deep voice. It was a lot scarier, and she only stayed because she'd never talked to an animal before.

 _'Human? You don't smell human.'_ The moarg sniffed, sitting up like a cat. _'Come closer. Let me smell you, youngling.'_

Chloe took a careful step nearer, knowing her nose had to be very close to the barrier now. The lion/monkey creature was quite a lot bigger than she'd thought. Peering over her shoulder, Chloe wondered if maybe she should find the Doctor just in case.

'Oh, she moved closer,' Tek panicked. 'I'm not the moarg carer. Can't touch. Can't save. Please come back. Cub needs to be safe.'

 _'No, stay. Feed me, youngling!'_

The moarg hissed, and Chloe felt fear shoot through her. The animal was really scary now, and louder in her ears or wherever the voice was going.

Her head ached, and memories flashed in her mind. She hadn't been thinking about being left in the cold all night when she was seven, or the beach where she'd last seen her mother. Yet they passed through her mind with vivid clarity, and it hurt. The creature didn't breathe fire, but whatever it was doing burned through her mind in a way that made her want to scream – if only she could. Somehow, Chloe couldn't control herself.

All she knew was the rapid memories, and pain.

Tek squealed and ran away, but Chloe couldn't turn to look.

The barrier of the habitat shimmered though nothing was touching it. The more memories and thoughts that flooded through Chloe's mind, the faster the barrier quivered – like the other had when the cyrodeer charged it all at once. The moarg stood on all fours and leaned its head to the barrier, cat-like ears poking through.

 _'Show me your life, youngling. Let me feast!'_

Suddenly, everything stopped.

Chloe screamed and fell back onto the ground, looking up at the towering moarg. It hissed in pain or anger – she couldn't tell which. She sat there, unable to move – her head still hurt and was making her dizzy. The moarg backed away, like a cat she saw in an ally once that kept its distance from the dog that chased it there.

'Chloe!'

The Doctor's voice echoed in her ears. His strong arms wrapped around her and she was scooped off the ground. Whimpering, she looped her arms around his neck and hugged her saviour close. His exhale whipped at her hair, and he held her tight.

He held her tight to keep her safe – that's what a dad does. Why had her own dad never done that, not even once?

'What happened?' the Doctor asked against her ear. 'What did you do?'

'I'm sorry!' Chloe cried, burying her face to his neck. 'I didn't mean to talk to it. I thought he was my friend.'

'You're safe now,' he exhaled again. 'That's what matters.'

'Thanks, Tek,' Donna said somewhere beside them, to the pale pink alien gasping for air into a paper bag.

Chloe kept her face hidden and arms wrapped around the Doctor who made her safe from monsters and scary aliens. She didn't want to know where the moarg carer was, or finding a great place to eat, or the bouncy castle or any of it. The grown-ups talked about all that unimportant stuff, while she clung to the only adult who had ever come back for her when needed.

~ xx ~

She had no idea how much time later it was, but Chloe was relieved to be lowered onto her favourite seat in the TARDIS console room. It was so incredibly warm inside the pretty ship. The Doctor scanned her with the sonic screwdriver, while Donna adjusted the butterfly clip in her hair when it slipped loose.

They looked worried and relieved – Chloe didn't know someone could be both at once. The Doctor cupped her face, and Chloe weakly returned his smile. He placed a kiss to her forehead before stepping back to move around the controls of the ship.

The blue box hummed in her ears in an almost musical way.

'Why did it let her go?' Donna questioned the busy Doctor, while dusting off the fish toy she'd retrieved for Chloe amidst the chaos.

Chloe lifted her legs onto the seat and curled her arms around her knees. Everything in her life was so scary now, though her head had nearly stopped hurting.

'I don't know,' the Doctor said. 'I really don't like not knowing. That moarg was fully-grown, at least hundreds of years old, and not fully bonded to its carer. They said it doesn't even leave the burrow for visitors, but the other one must have...'

He looked to Chloe again, who just stared back.

'Will she be okay?'

'Yeah, fine,' he waved his hand. 'That's not the problem. They're highly telepathic on a constantly open wavelength – I can defend myself against it. Time Lord natural defences - mental shields, and the like. You're both _human._ No telepathic value or substance whatsoever for a moarg. You wouldn't have even felt anything, not...Somehow, it reached her.'

'So she felt it?' Donna guessed. 'She heard it?'

'No, no probably not,' he shook his head. 'But it could _talk_ to her. A one-way signal – the feeding on thought waves wouldn't have been possible until it locked onto her unique mental signature. It's like tuning a radio for a specific channel in a room full of a million transmitters.'

'But she's human.'

'Yes, exactly,' he huffed. 'And I checked! Multiple times. She _is_ human. The moarg was frightened of a little human girl.'

They two grown-ups turned to Chloe with strange looks. She bit her lip and buried her face to her knees. She didn't want to cry – none of it mattered enough to cry about it, but everything was so confusing.

They were still talking about her and things that didn't make sense. Chloe slid off the chair and ran for the big stairs – she climbed them and hurried for her bedroom. She jumped onto the bed and pressed her face into the squishy pillow. Chloe looked at the blue flower sitting in the jar beside her bed. Was nothing in her life normal - had it ever been? Why couldn't she just have a mum and dad in a real house without emptiness or too many shadows?

Why did the blue box ship like to take them places where she could get eaten?

'Chloe?'

She saw the Doctor appear at the doorway, and rolled onto her side away from him. She was cross and didn't want to talk to a grown-up.

'Are you okay?' She felt him sit on the edge of the bed behind her.

Chloe shifted to look at him, seeing the mum and dad look on his face, and shook her head. Words were too hard, and the Doctor used too many. Words were what made the moarg scary.

'How can I fix this?'

Chloe shrugged, not feeling cross anymore. The Doctor was so different to all the other grown-ups. She couldn't stay mad at him, even when she tried really hard to be.

'Are you hungry?'

Chloe nodded, sitting up when she felt how hungry she really was. It was probably a really long time since breakfast.

'Right. Bath, then dinner,' the Doctor stood, offering his hand. 'Then bed. You need to rest.'

She frowned, but accepted his hand. She did feel tired and didn't want to have a bath first, but Chloe knew she hadn't had a single one since before leaving Victorian London the night a blue box fell from the sky. There had been more important things to do than take a boring bath.

She stood by the door of her own bathroom, as the Doctor moved around really quickly. He checked the temperature was just right and ran out, to return with an armful of colourful toys. She saw some rubber ducks, ships, things with tentacles, and glowing balls that hopefully floated on the water.

'There!' the Doctor smiled at the bath when finished preparing it.

It was filled with pale pink water, lots of bubbles, and enough toys for her to have to work out where she was supposed to fit.

Offering her a proud smile, he left and called for Donna to discuss what he should make for dinner. Chloe smiled at the bath emitting pretty-smelling steam and decided it was the moments after an adventure that she loved the most.

~ xx ~

While Donna helped Chloe wash her hair, the Doctor wandered the corridors of the TARDIS to stress over their recent trip. Rule 11 of his list, as to why children should never ever be a companion on the TARDIS, was bothering him again.

Chloe was such an enigma, who surprised and worried him on multiple occasions. An ordinary human girl who was anything but that.

He also wasn't as oblivious to the situation as he led Donna to believe. He'd noticed how he was with Chloe. Oh, how he'd noticed. The Doctor didn't think he could handle what it meant. Or, more accurately, what it would surely come to mean if he kept this up. If he let this little human girl be seared onto his hearts in the way his companions so often were.

It would be almost as painful as admitting she already was.

Stopping outside Donna's room, the Doctor turned to see the pink door the TARDIS had so achingly brought out of archive. The one with the golden rose printed on the front – he almost dared to touch it, but didn't. Rose would know what to do, he thought. She'd say just the right thing and everything would make sense again.

Everything would be easier.

Physically shaking those thoughts from his mind, he turned and marched back to the console room. Dinner was waiting in the oven, on stasis so the kitchen wasn't burned down in their absence, then Chloe would be tucked into bed. Donna would surely sleep not long after, and the Doctor would be alone to his thoughts and attempted distractions once again.

'Doctor!'

A Chloe-sized blur jumped down from the lower steps and ran to him. A bright smile lit up her face and eyes. She looked upwards at him while hugging his legs, as he was too tall for her to hug properly. He bent to her level so she could loop her arm around his shoulder.

He could almost hear his ninth regeneration scolding him for the domesticity this little girl always brought about.

'My hair smells pretty,' Chloe said.

Donna came down the stairs behind her, looking thoroughly amused by the little girl's delight.

'Like roses.'

The Doctor swallowed a pang of pain at the mention of the flower that, to him, could never only be a flower anymore. The shining blue eyes stared at him, prompting the Doctor to dutifully sniff her hair.

'It smells like a whole garden!' he played along; the child was unusually excited by the rather average 51th century shampoo Donna had used.

'Yeah.' Chloe smiled.

The occasional crease in her expression was gone, so her headache must have finally subsided. She's lucky, and he's immensely relieved, that an aching head was all she'd gotten after being mentally latched onto by a fully grown moarg.

'What's for dinner?' She asked sleepily.

'Chicken and chips!'

'That's my very favourite!' Chloe gasped.

He was right; nothing quite cleared away a stressful day like a warm bubble bath and scented shampoo. Maybe that's what he'll do when they all go to bed - soak in some bubbles and make his hair smell like bananas. It sounded like a good plan when it clearly did wonders on Chloe's formally shaken mood.

'I know.' He smiled, lifting her with him as he stood upright.

The girl yawned into the back of her hand. He carried her to the kitchen and knew he'd have to keep up a lot of conversation for her to stay away long enough to eat her dinner. He glanced at Donna, and saw the infuriatingly smug look was back on her face. He put the girl down and stepped back. Chloe went to the table to choose a chair, something she was very selective about, and the Doctor turned to face Donna.

'Shut up,' he grumbled, stepping out of Chloe's listening range. 'She can never be that.'

'Okay.' Donna nodded. 'But Doctor, one day you will change your mind. She'll show you. Being a dad again...It'll be alright this time. You'll see.'

'You're _very_ sure of that,' he looked closely at her face, searching for clues hidden away. 'Why?'

'Yeah, I am,' Donna said simply, and smiled.

That smile wasn't the smug one he was now used to or the teasing she threw his way on a regular basis. It was a secret smile, the sort that made no sense to him. He'd let Donna believe whatever she wanted for now – he had a tired little human girl to feed, then surprise with ice cream.

When did titles and technicalities start mattering anyway?

* * *

 _Did you like the zoo (and Tek!) story? Hopefully you enjoyed a bit of Donna POV - it's a rarity, as the focus is generally more on the Doctor and Chloe POV-wise. A heads-up that Rose's POV will be a rarity as well. As always - all questions, suggestions and feedback are welcomed and given a tribute dance of appreciation upon reception. Anyone who has theories about Chloe, how Donna remembers, how Rose could come back, or anything at all - I'd love to hear them if you do._ Spoilers, _yeah, but I'd still love to read your thoughts/comments!_


	6. The Tiger-Lily Lanterns

**~ The Tiger-Lily Lanterns ~**

A week.

Chloe had been with him for one week, and Donna back almost as long.

The Doctor normally didn't pay much attention to those straightforward timey things - not in the way Rose had kept a calendar in attempt to track birthdays, but a week was significant. He still didn't know how Donna remembered him and remained seemingly fine. He also hadn't solved any of the mysteries and oddities surrounding little Chloe.

However, it's been a week and they were still okay. He seemed to have temporarily misplaced his two companions somewhere in the TARDIS, but they were okay. As long as they didn't open the door to the laser room...Yeah, they'll be fine.

The Doctor was busy tinkering with wires, from his hammock seat underneath the floor of the console room, which were fried during the last landing on an especially energy-abundant planet. It was their own fault for letting Donna try to fly the TARDIS again. At least it went mostly better than the last time, and only took fifteen minutes to convince Chloe she could unbuckle her seatbelt when they landed.

Crashing was still a form of landing, right?

He should probably find his companions – surely they were getting hungry by now? It'd been hours since he'd last seen them. There was no indication that they needed rescuing or had gotten too terribly lost. The Doctor was confident Donna's voice could reach him no matter where in the ship she was.

Although, it wasn't Donna he was trying not to worry about.

Reconnecting two cables, the Doctor straightened and looked upwards through the transparent floor. It was so quiet with only the hum of the TARDIS for company, and it unsettled him. Donna and a child were on board – silence from both surely wasn't a good sign.

Dusting himself off, the Doctor put away his tools and slipped on his tweed jacket. He headed up to the console room and turned on the spot to have a proper glance around. Where should he start?

'Chloe! Donna!' he called, heading to the kitchen. 'You hungry?'

'In a minute!' Donna's voice returned from outside the corridor.

He was intrigued by how close she sounded, given how quiet the ship had been the last few hours - when it wasn't zapping him while he worked on repairs. He headed for the next corridor, following the direction where he'd heard Donna. Reaching the door, the Doctor shook his head and sighed. It was one of the smaller libraries, so of course they'd been quiet in there.

He heard Chloe before he saw her. The Doctor peered his head around the door-frame, and exchanged a smiled with Donna.

'The forest was really dark, but Mitta knew it was the only way she could find Bitty,' Chloe read from the picture book propped open on her lap.

Donna was seated comfortably on the sofa beside her, nodding and encouraging the girl's progress.

The Doctor leaned against the wall and watched the pair with warmth in his hearts. It was such a normal sight, yet one so rarely seen on the TARDIS. It had been a long time since the days when he'd find Susan sprawled out in some odd position, on the floor or over an armchair, with her focus buried in a good book. Some of his companions liked to read as well, but usually they were too busy having adventures or getting into trouble.

It was never quite like this.

'Looking up, Mitta could see the moon through the tops of the trees,' Chloe continued.

She hesitated and frowned at some of the words, but otherwise showed a contrasting reading ability. For a girl who often struggled to find the words to say, she was very good at following them on the pages of a book.

'If Mitta howled, Bitty might hear her. Bitty would know Mitta was coming to save her...' Chloe paused to trace the shape of the moon pictured on the page.

The girl looked up, and offered the Doctor a wave.

'Keep going. You're doing brilliant,' Donna said, raising from the sofa. 'I'll go fix us up some sandwiches. Doctor?' She nodded to Chloe and walked out.

He occupied Donna's previous space on the comfy, red sofa. Chloe smiled at him, then continued tracing the picture she was fascinated with. He was sure he hadn't seen the book before, or even heard that particular story. There was a whole bookcase nearby, newly filled with at least a hundred different children stories befitting his child companion's reading ability and age.

The TARDIS was exceptionally accommodating to Chloe.

'What did I miss?' the Doctor smiled at the girl.

She adjusted closer to his side to get comfortable.

'Bitty got lost and was taken by a monster,' Chloe told him, eyebrows creasing. 'Mitta has to find her before the sun comes up or the monster will eat Bitty.'

'On the plus side, she's got time,' the Doctor nodded. 'What happens next?'

Chloe shifted again and flipped the page to show Mitta, an orange wolf with pink eyes, howling to the moon.

'Mitta howled and howled, but no one answered,' Chloe read, her free hand touching the golden braid above her ear, as she leaned to the Doctor's side. 'She had to keep growing – I mean, going. Had to keep going, to find where the monster lived. Mitta followed the golden path deeper into the dark forest. She had to be brave now, for Bitty,'

'I do hope this story has a happy ending.' The Doctor glanced down at the ginger head resting against his chest. The girl was probably still worn out from swimming in the pool for most of the day previous.

'Me too.' Chloe bobbed her head. 'Mitta and Bitty had to run away from a Cyberman last time. That was scary! And their friend Bot got upgraded.'

'What?' He reached for the book and looked it over carefully. 'This is a children's book, why are there Cybermen upgrading people?' He peered at the back cover, and saw the publisher company written in small lettering along the bottom.

The words were already etched across several memories he'd tried to hide away, left over from his previous few regenerations. Those words could burn stars, alter time, and spark his hearts in ways that used to empower but now only ached.

 _'Bad Wolf,'_ the Doctor whispered.

'Are Cybermen real?' Chloe wondered.

The Doctor gently slid the girl back onto the sofa, and rushed over to the bookcase. He grabbed a random book from the shelves upon shelves of stories, and uttered the company name again. Checking another book, he saw it was on all of them - printed seemingly ordinarily along the bottom of the back covers.

The Bad Wolf Corporation - just like on Satellite Five, oh so long ago.

'Come and get it!' Donna called them to lunch, startling him from his thoughts.

'Doctor?'

He turned enough to see Chloe sitting anxiously on the sofa, just watching him with her hands tucked on her lap. He'd scared her. The Doctor looked down at the books in his hands and sighed. She enjoyed reading and wanted to get better at it. The stories of Mitta and Bitty populated the shelves more than any others, and it would be wrong of him to tarnish that.

'Right. Yes, sorry.' He exhaled.

The books slotted back into their place in the shelves, including the one Chloe was reading, and were left there as the simple children stories they were. It didn't meant anything, the Doctor told himself, as he led the girl to the kitchen for lunch. The TARDIS chose those books – it didn't matter why, but the publishing company name was surely a coincidence. He was busy, so the Doctor chose to ignore it. Lunch was more important, and afterwards they'd be visiting a planet he was rather looking forward to showing off to his companions.

He didn't have time to worry about what the TARDIS could be up to now.

* * *

Chloe squirmed on her favourite seat, waiting for Donna to finish adjusting the new star-shaped clip in her hair.

'There you go.' Donna smiled.

Chloe hopped down and hurried to the door where the Doctor slouched impatiently. She bit her lip and hoped he wasn't mad at her for wanting to wear her clip before they went on the adventure, but his smile chased away those worries when they joined him.

She watched the Doctor and Donna leave the TARDIS, and fiddled her hands together nervously. He'd decided not to hold her hand during every moment of their trips anymore. Chloe slowly took a step forward and decided she didn't like it at all. Holding the Doctor's hand made her feel braver, and without it everything was colder - like spots of a house cast in shadows on a breezy night.

'Planet Everglow!' the Doctor announced, holding his arms out to introduce the room.

And it was a room, which didn't make a lot a sense. Chloe had wanted to go somewhere really pretty, but a room that looked a lot like one of many in an office building was boring and disappointing. Donna quickly complained about it.

'This is the check-in station. Bit of a lobby, actually,' the Doctor explained. 'The glow festival is a very special annual event. All visitors have to register attendance to be allowed entrance into the main habitable region.'

'Since when do you care about all that?'

'Since now,' the Doctor looked at Chloe, though he was answering Donna. 'The lanterns are very precious to them; the people of this world will do anything to defend them, especially during the glow festival. _Anything.'_

The line to the desk was very short with only one four-armed, purple alien ahead of them. The Doctor stepped forward first, carefully positioning his feet exactly in the middle of the white panel. A light, much like the flash of a camera, blinked from it. A 3D picture of the word "male" appeared hovering over a white circle on the desk.

'Names, and planet of origin?' the man seated in front of them asked.

Chloe assumed anyone would sound bored and look sleepy if they had to sit at a desk all day surrounded by papers and books. She also thought he was the most normal-looking alien she'd seen so far – he was red and had really pointy ears, but otherwise looked mostly human.

'The Doctor. Gallifrey.'

The alien gasped and became rather flustered when he heard the Doctor's planet. Chloe thought it sounded like a cool place, and wondered if the TARDIS could take them there one day. She'd have to remember to ask later, if the words came out properly. Talking was always easier inside the blue box than outside of it.

'I...Honoured.' The alien scribbled notes on some papers, alternating between staring at the Doctor and avoiding his direction entirely. He handed over a name-tag with shaky red hands, and exhaled a long breath before directing his attention to Donna with immense curiosity.

'Donna. Earth.'

The flash and 3D word stated her as "female", and Chloe realised those must be the grown-up words for boy and girl. Or did males and females mean grown-up boys and girls? Instead of learning something new, she just got more confused.

The red alien glanced at the hovering word, then back at Donna. He sighed, and the Doctor halted his action of rocking back and forth on his heels.

'Females on Everglow during the glow festival must register visitation with both first and secondary names. You are from the planet of Earth – such names apply to your culture and therefore must be stated or you will be evacuated immediately.'

'Why?' Donna growled, jabbing a finger towards the Doctor. He jumped back as if dodging a slap. 'He didn't have to.'

'He is from the planet of Gallifrey,' the alien answered before the Doctor could speak. 'Names are are not mandatory here due to the nature of their cultures. Additionally, to request a name if one is not given would be to commit a crime against the High Council and, by extension, the planet itself. And, more to the point, he is identified to be male.'

'Really, that's a crime here?' The Doctor frowned. 'That's new.'

'What, so why do females have give their full names if males don't? _Are you kidding me?'_

Chloe didn't understand why it was bad for girls to do something if boys didn't have to, but Donna was really angry about it. The alien looked a bit scared of her until the Doctor shifted her attention to himself.

'No, no – it's not an insult!' the Doctor quickly explained. 'It's in honour of females as the bearers of life, Donna. The glow festival is also their mating season.'

'What's that got to do with using my full name?'

'I'll...explain later.'

Chloe wondered why the Doctor looked at her when he said that.

'Fine,' Donna huffed and faced the startled alien at the desk. 'Donna _Noble._ Earth.'

Chloe wanted to hide from having to step on the white panel on the floor, or talk to the alien, but knew it was her turn next. She counted to five and walked forward. Looking at the white panel in front of her rainbow running shoes, Chloe halted and glanced up at the Doctor.

'I don't have a last name.'

'Oh.' He frowned. 'Right, you don't. Um...Well, we better give you one then.'

'And you didn't think of that _before_ coming here?' Donna shook her head at him. 'What do you mean she doesn't have a last name? How can she not have a surname?'

'Shush, Donna. I'm thinking!'

'How about Smith?'

'No, no. Not Smith...' he looked them both over, then adjusted his blue bow tie. 'Not Noble. It's too...Just, no.'

Chloe was nervous about having a last name. She'd never had one before and didn't know what it meant to have one. Everyone else did, but what were they for?

She stood on the panel and held her breath as the flash happened. It didn't hurt, so she exhaled. The word "female" hovered over the circle, easing a bit of confusion if it was just for grown-up girls. Chloe turned her head to watch the Doctor pace until he came up with the name he liked most. He told it to the alien for her, and said she was from the planet Earth. Chloe was glad because she didn't think she'd be able to speak at all. Visiting places where she had to do things all by herself made her tummy unhappy.

Accepting the name-tag Donna retrieved for her, Chloe followed the grown-ups across the boring room. Way behind the desk was a big door, though the Doctor dashed off to the side - where a group of red aliens were wheeling the TARDIS, on some sort of giant wagon, into the dark parts of the room. The Doctor busied himself with giving firm instructions about the storage of the blue box, so Chloe had to watch Donna instead to work out what to do with her name-tag.

She touched the penned words and decided it was a nice enough last name. _Tyler._ She didn't know anyone with that name - it could be all hers. Mirroring Donna's own actions, Chloe peeled back the paper and stuck the sticky bit to the front of her yellow dress. Looking up, she saw green everywhere and smiled at the beauty of it all through the door Donna pushed open.

'Now _this_ is Planet Everglow at its best!' the Doctor joined them outside in the sunshine. 'The height of the season, and crown of the Valura Empire. Now, what we're looking for...' He spun on the spot, then pointed to a green hill to the right. It was just beyond the bridge, and over a sparkling river that looked like something out of Chloe's favourite fairytale book in the TARDIS.

'Is that where the festival is?' Chloe asked.

It looked like a normal hill from the distance; the sparkles dancing across the sunlit water of the river was much more impressive than a lump of grassed ground.

'Yes. Well, that's where the lanterns are,' the Doctor nodded, leading them on the path to a town-sized area of stalls and red aliens. 'The festival starts here. If we want to see the lanterns, we need to dress the part.'

'Oh, I like the sound of that,' Donna said, smiling at a stall selling colourfully pink or orange dresses.

'They don't have a lot of colours,' Chloe said.

'The tiger-lily lanterns are pink and orange, so the locals use those colours in celebration of them,' the Doctor said. 'It's their way.'

Chloe supposed that was okay then. Pink and orange weren't ugly like brown, so she nodded when the Doctor asked if she would like to wear something for the festival as well. She'd never seen the colours so bright before, and had trouble deciding what she wanted to wear. Donna headed for the long dresses with shorter sleeves across the path, while the Doctor made his way along the cluttered hat stalls. Chloe felt she'd grown up a little bit since not having to hold the Doctor's hand all the time, but wasn't sure she liked it.

She didn't feel as safe, but knew she'd just have to get used to the change.

The red aliens at the stalls smiled a lot. It was weird to see so many people smiling when it was their job to stand around all day selling clothes to people. Chloe thought it would be a really boring job, even if the clothes were very pretty.

'Hello,' said a woman with even pointier ears than the man at the office desk. 'Do you need any help, little one?'

'I don't know,' Chloe shuffled her feet and couldn't make eye contact with the alien.

She was still used to being unseen and forgotten in Victorian London. Donna and the Doctor had left her to wander by herself and it was scary. She struggled with words when the woman asked more questions - like if she was in allegiance to the sun or moon. Chloe thought of Mitta and wanted to say she liked the moon best, but didn't know if that was the wrong answer. Making an alien mad when the Doctor wasn't beside her would only make everything worse.

'What do you like to wear?'

'I dunno.' Chloe stared at the grass.

She'd never had much choice in her clothes – her aunt chose them and told her not to ruin anything. That was it. The TARDIS picked her clothes as well and Chloe loved them a lot. No one ever asked her before, and now the alien woman wanted to know what she liked. Chloe didn't have a good answer to give.

'Something pretty?' She tried. Groaning, Chloe shook her head and knew it was a bad answer because everything in all the stalls were pretty.

'Do you like wearing dresses?' The Doctor appeared at her side, his hand dropping to her shoulder. Chloe exhaled with relief at the warm touch.

He always seemed to know when she needed him the most.

'Not all girls like dresses, and that's fine. They have more than just dresses and really cool hats here, you know. You can wear whatever you like, Chloe.'

She tilted her head back to look up at him, seeing he was eating a banana and admiring the dresses in the stall. They hung from the vines coming from the inside of the tent roof, which Chloe hadn't taken much notice of before.

She thought about the ugly brown dresses her aunt made her wear all the time, and how hard they usually were to run in. She was wearing a dress right now though; a bright yellow one with darker spots. She'd found it hanging in her new closet that morning and loved it right away. It was a lovely dress and comfortable to wear – nothing like the ones her aunt shoved over her head.

'I do like dresses.' Chloe nodded.

'Then pick one,' the Doctor encouraged. 'Any dress. It doesn't matter if it's long or short, pink or orange – as long as _you_ like it.'

Chloe watched him eat his banana, wondering why he was saying those things. He'd given her choices like that before, but usually just said to pick one of something and that was it. Did the Doctor know she had a lot of trouble with clothes? Maybe knowing things about her before she tried to explain them was a dad thing to do. No one else had been like that, and he'd told her he was a dad. The Doctor always knew the right thing to do or say to made things easier.

'Can I wear this one?' Chloe looked at the dress she was already wearing, with her name-tag stuck to the front. It was pretty – maybe not as much as all the other ones hanging in the stalls that looked like flowers or ball gowns, but she did like it.

'Whatever you like,' the Doctor repeated, giving her a smile.

They turned when Donna approached, wearing a dress with many layers of both pink and orange. It looked like someone had spilled the colours on the dress instead of trying to work out what bit was which colour.

'What do you think?' Donna gave a twirl. 'Too much?'

'You're beautiful!' Chloe gasped.

'I agree.' The Doctor nodded.

Donna blushed at the praise, though quickly noticed neither of them had changed their clothes. Chloe shuffled her feet and looked at the ground, missing what the Doctor said to Donna about their clothes. Whatever it was, the attention went completely to him and they went to help him pick something to wear. The chosen suit was orange, but the top-hat and bow tie were pink. He looked a bit weird wearing something other than his jacket and such, but the Doctor was delighted with his choice of festive clothes.

Chloe followed the grown-ups further into the crowds a bit behind the stalls. There were tables set up with blocks that the red aliens bought and ate, as well as lots of poles tipped with flowing pink and orange ribbons. Chloe glanced down at her yellow dress and fidgeted. She felt out of place now – yellow was a bit like orange, but not enough to really blend in with the others dressed for the occasion. Seeing the Doctor and Donna wearing their new clothes didn't make her feel any better. Her dress looked a lot harder to rip than the ones hanging in the stalls, though Chloe wondered if she should have risked it.

Why did she always have to be so different from everyone else?

'What are these?' Donna stopped by one of the tables with the thin blocks of golden food.

'Necarites,' the Doctor said, paying for one with what looked like green straws. 'It's all they eat. Once a year, which is 190 days on Everglow, they have this festival to celebrate and honour the release of honey-like nectar from the lanterns. It's used to produce a year's supply of necarites.'

 _'This_ is all they eat?' Donna stared at the block the Doctor was breaking into three sections.

Chloe accepted her piece and poked it. Whatever it was, it smelled sweet and felt like a chunk of cake.

'There are a few flavour varieties.' The Doctor shrugged, taking a bite out of his piece. 'Mmmhm!'

Donna ate hers, making delighted sounds as well. Chloe sniffed her piece again, not forgetting those terrible berries on the planet with the scary birds, and took a cautious bite. It even tasted like cake, but of a flavour she'd never had before.

'I could eat this all day,' the Doctor sighed.

'Me too!' Chloe grinned, finishing what was left.

'I don't know if I could eat only this for a whole year, though,' Donna added. 'Every year, every day - just this.'

Passing by more tables of the block food, Chloe was startled by a loud sound ahead – it reminded her of boxes that rattled as they tumbled down stairs. She jumped closer to the Doctor's side, and peered around the hand he dropped onto her shoulder to see what was going on. Everything got louder as they headed in the direction of the noise.

Chloe exhaled when she realised the strange mix of rhythmic clapping and birdsong was actually some sort of alien music. She rather liked it.

'Ah ha!' The Doctor grinned. 'Yes!'

He reached for Chloe and Donna, leading both of them by hand into what happened to be a dancing spot. It was a mowed area where the ground felt a lot harder and smoother; a naturally grown dance floor.

'And what is _that_ meant to be?' Donna laughed at the Doctor, who held his arms straight up and was shaking them. 'You call that dancing?'

'Maybe!' he declared. 'It's a work in progress. C'mon, Chloe!'

Chloe thought he looked silly, but it did seem like a lot of fun. She'd never done much dancing before – only the lessons her aunt had dragged her to in big dresses she couldn't move in. She'd only gone twice, then her aunt had stopped and said there wasn't any point continuing. The way the Doctor danced was a lot easier – there weren't as many rules, and she just copied what he did.

The dance was completely ridiculous, and Chloe loved it.

Donna cheered for them on the sidelines, until the music changed to catch more of a melody. The Doctor dropped his arms and lunged forward to hold Donna's hands, pulling her in to join them. He twirled her around, while Chloe laughed at how silly the grown-ups looked. In that moment, it wasn't just about attending a festival that would be starting soon. It was easy for Chloe to forget they were on another planet filled with red aliens and lots of orange or pink. All she knew was the musical sound, glowing motions of lights, and people spiralling happily all around her - it felt like magic.

The Doctor held her hands and spun her around. She wanted to scream at first, when her feet lifted off the ground, but his grip was strong and safe. Chloe didn't think the Doctor would let her go while she was spinning.

Catching her in his arms, he lifted Chloe high onto his shoulders so she could see everything. The colours and lights were everywhere, while the aliens danced in strange zigzag ways to the music. Chloe felt amazing to sit up so high yet be safe and able to look down at the display. She continued to hold the Doctor's hands when he resumed his silly dancing with her seated on his shoulders. She fought the urge to cling on in fear of falling while he moved so fast, but everything going on around her was so distracting that she even forgot to be scared.

Chloe yelped when she suddenly felt herself slip down, only to land safely into the Doctor's arms. He offered her a grin, then she was on her feet again while he danced with Donna.

Chloe counted to five, and waited.

Something bad must be about to happen, right? That's what all the adventures so far were like – once things got really nice and fun, some sort of trouble happened and it got scary.

The sounds and joy continued.

Confused, Chloe went to ask Donna if this was actually an adventure or not, but instead her hands were used by the Doctor to be pulled back into another dance. Donna had a lot of fun laughing at the Doctor's silly dancing. Chloe just loved being included, even if she didn't have pretty new pink or orange clothes like everyone else.

~ xx ~

'It's starting,' the Doctor said.

Chloe was relieved when the music and dancing finally stopped. Her feet hurt in her running shoes, and she was almost as tired as the day before - when Donna taught her to swim in the TARDIS pool.

The crowd of aliens formed a messy line, and some had long sticks with a glowing ball attached by string at the end. They headed towards the hill, and the Doctor hurried to join them. Chloe groaned at the sight of the hill being so far away – she didn't want to walk anywhere after all that crazy dancing. Everyone was walking faster than her, and even the fear of being left behind wasn't strong enough to force her feet forward.

Coming to a stop after a few struggled paces, Chloe just stood there watching everyone leave her. She rubbed at the tears in her eyes. She was frustrated at her own feet, but the ache worsened with every step. How long had they been dancing? The sky was bright before, and now it was black with only a few stars in the sky. The planet didn't even seem to have a moon.

She was scared of being left behind in total darkness, and shivered against the cool air.

'Chloe?' the Doctor came into view, with Donna at his side. 'You okay?'

'My feet,' was all she could say.

The Doctor placed a hand on her head, then turned around to crouch in front of her. She recognised the action from when they'd visited the zoo. A piggyback – and this time she knew what to do.

Climbing onto his back, Chloe felt them raising up and sighed with relief. Her feet dangled on either side of him, no longer needed to get up the hill with the other aliens. Donna rubbed her back and smiled with kindness, then led the way back to the group. Chloe wasn't sure why Donna did that, but it was really nice. She'd been hugged more often by Donna as well - maybe Donna was her best friend now too?

'How can you get nectar from lanterns?' Donna was asking during the walk.

Chloe, avoiding the pink top-hat on the Doctor's head, pressed her cheek to his neck and looped her arms over his shoulders. Piggybacks were very comfortable and made her sleepy. She didn't listen to the Doctor's many words about the tiger-lily lanterns, and something about pods that grew overnight after the festival, but wished the walk could last forever. She was warm and comfortable, already having decided piggybacks were one of her favourite things – but still not better than the blue box ship.

Chloe wanted to complain when they reached the top of the hill, and the Doctor let her down to the ground. Her feet didn't feel too bad now, so she went to have a look at the flowers covering the entire field ahead.

The tiger-lily flowers were almost as big as she was! Thick stems grew out of the grassy ground like normal flowers, but then became what did look like a lantern – a clear cylinder sort of outer bit with a bit of stem on the inside, forming a glowing orb that had the rest of the stem extending out the top. That attached to the huge flower, prettier than any Chloe had ever seen before. The tips of the open petals were pink, which faded into a vibrant orange with lots of black spots.

Looking around, Chloe noticed that while the flowers all looked the same not every one of them actually were. Without any sort of reason or pattern, all the flowers in the field either glowed pink or orange with just enough light to see the shapes of the other aliens surrounding them.

A nearby alien crouched in front of a flower and gently touched the exposed stem. The protected orb inside the plant lit up, and the middle of the flower flickered with a white flame.

The crowd cheered, though Chloe didn't know why.

' _That's_ the lanterns?' Donna gasped. 'The _flowers_ are lighting up like lanterns?'

Chloe stared, as more aliens touched a dim flower to create the flame in the middle and brightness of the orbs inside. She saw a pink-glowing flower in front of her and wanted to give it a try. She tilted her head back, and saw the Doctor was already giving her a nod of permission.

Running forward, Chloe carefully reached to the stem of the pink-glowing tiger-lily and touched it. It felt incredibly warm and a bit prickly. The flame flickered on inside the flower, and the orb shone beautifully. Chloe looked up with a smile when she got a cheer of her own.

Everything was pretty and happy while every flower in the field was being lit. Then it got very quiet and sad. Chloe was scared something bad was happening, and hurried back to the Doctor's side. His hand rested on her shoulder, and he simply watched an alien step forward to breathe into the flame. Nothing happened, and the alien started sobbing.

'Doctor?' Chloe tugged his jacket, wanting to ask why it all got really sad so fast.

'There's a legend,' the Doctor said quietly to Chloe and Donna. 'That if you breathe into the flame, while thinking of a loved one lost or taken, the flower will tell you if they're going to be found or come back. If yes, the flame will change colour.'

'Is it true?' Donna wondered.

'Probably not.'

'Can you try?' Chloe tugged his jacket again. 'You lost people – you said so. I wished for them to come back, and Donna did. Can we try?'

The Doctor looked down at her with a sad smile, and Donna sighed.

Chloe waited, wanting to see if the legend was true - except she didn't have anyone who was lost or taken from her. Everyone she'd ever loved, before seeing the blue box fall from the sky, had just walked away or died.

'Can't hurt to try,' Donna whispered.

The Doctor walked to the pink-glowing flower Chloe had lit and crouched in front of it, his actions slow and quiet. He rubbed his hands together and took a breath - slowly releasing it into the flame. Chloe stood beside him, eagerly watching and wondering what colour it might change to. The Doctor and Donna stepped back after a while, but Chloe dropped down on the grass to wait.

The crowd got smaller the longer she sat there, and still the flame stayed white.

She heard the two grown-ups behind her talking about leaving now the festival was over. She expected the Doctor to pick her up and take her away, but was surprised when he sat down beside her. He sonic'ed Donna's phone - she walked away to call her grandfather and let him know how things were going. Chloe didn't know much about phones, but was fairly sure that's not how they worked.

Then again, since seeing the TARDIS, everything in her whole life no longer made any sort of sense at all.

'Do you think Mitta saved Bitty from the monster?' Chloe asked the Doctor, thinking about the book she was reading earlier, to pass the waiting time. She took a quick glance at the alien sky, seeing it was still true that there was no moon there. Darting her eyes back to the flower towering over her, though tilted in the right enough angle for her to see the flame was still white.

She focused really hard on wishing.

'What do you think?'

The Doctor's orange suit jacket fell over her shoulders, providing the warmth Chloe didn't realise she'd been lacking. The flowers were very warm with their candle-like lights, but the grassy ground was icy cold after sitting on it for a while.

'I think Bitty might howl back,' Chloe answered. 'To let Mitta know where she is, so Mitta can find her and stop the monster.'

'Yeah?' He adjusted his top-hat. 'What was the book called, anyway?'

'The Wolf Howls.'

'Interesting title,' his voice sounded all mysterious. 'I reckon you're probably right, about Bitty howling back.'

'I hope Mitta saves her.' Chloe sighed.

The flame still wasn't changing, and maybe all her wishing wasn't enough this time. The Doctor never told her to leave, even when Donna came to sit beside him - maybe there was a reason to hope.

Maybe he was wishing too.

'Who is lost?' Chloe looked to the Doctor.

He didn't like that question, and Donna looked really worried about it.

'Rose,' he finally said. 'Her name was Rose. It was a long time ago, and she's okay. She's happy.'

'How's she lost?' Chloe didn't understand.

'I can't ever see her again,' the Doctor said. His green eyes watched the flicker of the white flame so intently it almost seemed to move inside his eyes as well. 'Her world is sealed off from this one. She fell through and now...She's stuck here.'

'But happy,' Donna added. 'With her family.'

'Yeah.'

Chloe looked to the flower and wondered why the Doctor picked her if Rose was happy. It was sad to never see someone again, but he'd told her there were so many people he'd lost - why pick her? If Rose was stuck in some other world, Chloe supposed maybe the flower was right to keep its flame white.

'Can the TARDIS save her?' she asked. 'It can go to other worlds – it can go anywhere, right?'

'Not to that one.'

Chloe lowered her gaze and decided to stop wishing.

The Doctor sounded so sad, and Donna looked even sadder. She didn't want to be on the hill anymore. Everything had started out really fun and happy, but now Chloe just wanted to go back to the blue box. She got up, and the grown-ups did the same. Holding the Doctor's hand, while still wrapped in his jacket, Chloe decided to walk without a piggyback.

'You didn't get a new dress?' Donna noticed.

They followed the green light from the end of the sonic screwdriver to find their way across the edge of the field.

'I like this one.' Chloe didn't want to talk about clothes, and didn't know why it made her annoyed.

'That's not the only reason,' the Doctor said. 'Is it?'

Chloe thought it was, but the Doctor always knew her so well – had he noticed something she'd missed? All the dresses were so pretty, though she really did like the yellow one she was wearing. Her aunt never let her wear such nice clothes.

'Children only wreck things,' Chloe frowned. 'If I get a pretty dress, I'll just rip it.'

'Did your aunt tell you that?' the Doctor sounded angry. Maybe he agreed.

'Yes.'

'That's _not_ right. We're getting you a new dress - right now,' Donna decided. 'You deserve-'

'I don't want a new dress!' Chloe yanked her hand out of the Doctor's, and halted. She glared at Donna, but while she'd spoken those words with her own voice it wasn't what she heard.

Her aunt's angry voice filled her ears, from all those mixed memories throughout her life. Children were careless and only made a mess. Girls had to wear dresses and look pretty, but little girls just wrecked things grown-ups spent money on. She had to stand still when wearing a nice dress, not dance around or eat any food. Chloe couldn't be trusted with nice things.

The TARDIS made clothes – if she ripped one, it could just make a new one or fix it. Those stalls were filled with beautiful orange and pink clothes that her aunt wouldn't dare let Chloe touch. She'd ripped the brown dress the night she'd first seen the blue box – her aunt was right. Chloe would wreck anything nice, even if she tried really hard not to.

Hearing a _riiip_ sound, she looked up in panic. The Doctor had torn the orange sleeve of his shirt all the way up to his shoulder. She stood there, shocked, and couldn't move when he crouched in front of her to show the big tear in his shirt.

'It's just clothes,' the Doctor said. 'I can get a new shirt. It doesn't matter. It's not _important._ Donna looks lovely in that dress, doesn't she?'

Chloe nodded, looking at the dress in the light of the sonic screwdriver and nearby lanterns.

'If the dress was ripped, she'd still look lovely. It's not the clothes, Chloe.'

'But...' She stared at her shoes. 'My aunt-'

'Was wrong,' the Doctor cut her words off. 'She was _wrong.'_

 _'You_ look lovely in that dress,' Donna added, holding the screwdriver's light over Chloe. 'But you don't have to be afraid to choose something new. Like the Doctor said, it's just a dress.'

Chloe was confused.

Grown-ups lied and were wrong a lot, but her aunt was so sure about the dresses. She didn't know what to say or think, and was glad the Doctor offered a piggyback for the way down the hill so they could go back to the TARDIS. The pretty blue box was her most favourite place, and Chloe was getting hungry again. She climbed onto his back and looked around at the lanterns. She had a good view from up there, and saw the one the Doctor had lit still shining brightly at the edge of the others. It was like a field of candles growing under a starry night sky.

As the Doctor adjusted his grip on her, Chloe yawned and let the sight of the field be the last she saw before they'd leave planet Everglow. The Doctor and Donna were too busy talking about hats to notice, but Chloe did.

Mere moments before it vanished from view behind the hill, Chloe watched the white flame of their flower turn the most vibrant shade of gold she'd ever seen. Her wish had come true and the legend was real – one day, Rose would be found or come back to the Doctor. The golden flame proved it, while engulfing the flower in the light until the whole tiger-lily lantern shone like a bright golden star in a cloudy sky.

Chloe smiled against the Doctor's shoulder, and let her mind become foggy with trying to imagine what Rose might be like. They could become best friends too, just like Chloe now was with Donna.

And maybe Rose would know how to make the Doctor not sad anymore.

* * *

 _Not much longer until Rose now! As always - I'd love to hear from you and know how you feel about the story so far, as well as any feedback you'd like to give. Wilfred is in the next chapter, so hopefully everyone likes having more of him in the story - let me know either way. The Doctor and Chloe will be doing some more cooking together - any ideas/suggestions on what they could make? What do you think of the father/daughter stuff with them at the moment - do you want to see more of it, or what? Thank you everyone for still reading, and I hope you enjoyed this chapter. And that Chloe now has a last name!_


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